The Dinged Up Dodge

[Bugman Jeff]

I started this thread on the old site, but like many of us, have abandoned that site. With spring right around the corner and work about to resume, I thought I'd restart my rebuild here. Also, and completely coincidentally, this is my 100th post :)

I've been a Viper fan since I first saw one at the impressionable age of 12. I liked them so much that when the Dodge dealer in Madison first got one in stock, my Dad took me to see it(and have my picture taken with it). The RT/10 was something, but when the GTS came out a few years later, it instantly went to the top of the Dream Car list. Not only did it have killer looks, with 150 HP more than the Corvettes of the era, it had the performance to match. Like most people, I'd always considered them out or reach for us mere mortals.

Some of you guys might remember around a year ago there was a wrecked b/w '97 GTS on e-bay at a very low price. Since I was across the country, I couldn't inspect it first hand. Moreover, there was a bank lien on the title. It was the best year, the right body style, and my favorite color. The right side of the nose was slid under something, then the car spun around and smashed the driver's door. I'm pretty good with bodywork, and spent years working with fiberglass in a kit car place, so it's crunched exterior didn't scare me. It was everything else that had me worried. I knew it was a gamble, but it borded on a once in a lifetime opportunity for a guy like me.

I have to give HUGE props to my Dad for making this deal work, he's great with paperwork type stuff(and needs something to do in his retirement other than play golf). I work really odd hours, and didn't have any chances to contact the seller myself. Without his help, it wouldn't have happened. The title situation was the biggest hurdle. The car was in the seller's name, the bank loan was in his ex-fiance's name. The loan was paid off, but out of spite, the ex-fiance wouldn't sign off on the paperwork to clear the title. It didn't help that he lived in Seattle, and she'd moved to Oakland. Sounded like a classic woman scorned scenario to me. It took a month, but my Dad was able to get the title cleared so I could register it here in WI.

When it showed up, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew it needed a door and window, and didn't really set my hopes to high. I was pleasantly surprised when it showed up. The body was rough, the interior was dirty, but the chassis and running gear looked absolutely phenomenal. The frame is straight, it runs and drives great, and though covered in dog fur, the interior is in good shape(and thankfully doesn't smell like dog). Everything that wasn't the body was in near perfect condition. The door was a total loss, not worth the effort to fix, and much of the window was laying in the driver's seat. The driver's door sill and 1/4 panel are cracked but salvageable. The paint is covered in scratches and scrapes. Someone started to repair the hood, and it's got a primer splotch on it. The seller described the exhaust as sounding "nasty." He was right, at anything over idle it sounded like crap. This is because the cats were removed...and the straight pipe replacing them was shoved into the resonators and not connected to the head pipes. Basically open exhaust dumped into the sills. It's a start :) Here's how it looked when I first got it, literally minutes after the transporter dropped it off:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF0osrHxqBY

The battery was laying on it's side, and the driver's door wouldn't latch. Once I got drivable enough to get from Dad's to my house, I was able to spend some quality time with it looking things over. Here are the worst parts of it:

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[ACRucrazy]

I remember seeing your progress on the other site. Really enjoyed you giving this thing the care it needs!

[Viper Girl]

Congrats on your 100th post!

subscribing so I can watch your rebuild.

[viperr]

That is a great year and my favorite color. I wish you well on the project. You will have something very special when you get it done.

[Bugman Jeff]

The driver's door on the Viper is a total loss. Not only is the skin smashed, the inner structure and door jamb are all bent up too and it wouldn't latch properly. It's not worth the effort to fix. The door panel is in great shape though. Fortunately, one of the biggest Viper salvage yards in the world is right here in Wisconsin. Don Scharf Automotive had a door shell and glass for me. It was even the right color. The missing hinge cover was in the trunk, and I reinstalled it too once the door was on.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jOCBXL4T6Ww/UfaZqKysLiI/AAAAAAAAAC4/zLxABbMn5aU/s1600/SAM_1174.JPG

There was another problem with the door, the inner and outer stanchion covers were broken when the door was smashed.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rU0SP0qlhwo/Ufad05moxSI/AAAAAAAAADM/kMVphsPb82k/s1600/SAM_1004.JPG

The outer looked fine from outside, but all three of the molded in attachment nuts were broken off, leaving nothing to hold the cover on. Fortunately, the covers are made from ABS. ABS is great because it's very easy to repair. The best glue for ABS is...ABS. ABS very readily melts in acetone. What I did was melt some LEGOs(also ABS) in a jar of acetone, effectively making an ABS paste glue. When the acetone evaporates out, you're left with solid ABS. I went to the hardware store and got some stainless nuts the right size, ground the paint off the inner surface, then glued the nuts on with my ABS paste.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-COX9YfRSVzk/Ufad092jHgI/AAAAAAAAADQ/pwZq3Z5oFPw/s1600/SAM_1090.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sItaHFzwuME/Ufad036Z23I/AAAAAAAAADI/xBShVKHf0Ow/s1600/SAM_1100.JPG

The inner cover was cracked and had a piece broken off. Somebody had tried to repair it once already, and didn't do a very good job so the broken piece didn't fit well. I first used just acetone to melt the pieces back together. Then I used some of my ABS paste as a filler to fill in and reinforce the cracks.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9mePSROpwFE/Ufae1m583jI/AAAAAAAAADo/iap06V27ts4/s1600/SAM_1096.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uAsjflsSK50/Ufae1wG_3LI/AAAAAAAAADs/A4JiAcWX-6k/s1600/SAM_1103.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R2m56u784GY/Ufae1y7LsUI/AAAAAAAAAD4/WTsZVnazpRo/s1600/SAM_1106.JPG

It's not pretty, but it works. When I get the time, I'll sand, fill, and repaint the cover, you'll never know it was fixed. For now, it functions the way it should, and most people are so taken with the rest of the car they don't notice it's been repaired anyway.

[pony23]

So glad you brought this over here. I loved reading about all the work you are putting into the car. Great restoration project.

[Bugman Jeff]

Thanks. It's come a long ways from where it was, and it's been a fun project so far.
Congratulations on your 100th post too :cool:

[Mopar Boy]

Good lord that body has taken a beating!

My compliments for taking it on! it will be well worth it when its done! :)

[TitleMine]

Remember seeing your progress when I was in the process of shopping for my Viper. Dude, it's salvage now, nowhere to go but up. Go for an all out engine build if you can swing it.

[Canadian venom]

Cool thread, :dude3:

[GTSJoe]

Nice job bringing her back to life.

[Bugman Jeff]

Remember seeing your progress when I was in the process of shopping for my Viper. Dude, it's salvage now, nowhere to go but up. Go for an all out engine build if you can swing it.

It's got a clear and clean title. Non-salvage, no liens, and, not that I have much faith in Carfax's reliability, Carfax reports no accidents :)

[Bugman Jeff]

With the new door installed and adjusted, I could get the hood fitting better. When I got the car, the passenger front corner of the hood wouldn't even latch. I finally got it to latch, but the edge of the hood was a full 3/4" higher than the fascia.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LkRF8TthcUY/Uff1ILogf0I/AAAAAAAAAEI/Runl2ggbu0w/s1600/SAM_1061.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dRwbY7TSsqw/Uff1JP4kmNI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/nLeMvpCi5ac/s1600/SAM_1071.JPG

I couldn't figure out how to lower the hood any further, and the hinges were definitely not bent. After a few hours of head scratching, I realized that that the hood wasn't high, the bumper was low. Turns out that when the nose slid under what ever it slid under, the whole bumper assembly was shoved all the way down in it's slots. I also discovered that the headlight on the passenger's side had been replaced. I'm guessing the original was shattered in the accident. After nearly 12 hours of screwing around, I finally got the doors adjusted to the body, hood set to the doors, bumper set to the hood, and headlights fit to the openings. All the gaps are good, but not great. I'm usually a stickler for panel gaps but since I need to take it apart again to do bodywork anyway, I decided it was good enough for now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-33D_-nPqblo/Uff27CTKd8I/AAAAAAAAAEg/q7HoUGnwF2Q/s1600/SAM_1235.JPG

[Mopar Boy]

For what it is worth, some cars came from the factory with worse gaps than you have there. LOL The headlight to hood gap varies on many Gen 1 and 2s.

[Bugman Jeff]

When I got my car, someone had already done some fixing on the hood(and not very well I might add). There was a big primer spot on it covering the repair. The repair area extended over the stripes, and stood out like a sore thumb.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lOsk5KUc3rI/UfyH5fUDG8I/AAAAAAAAAEw/n1e0WNl8Znk/s1600/SAM_1020.JPG

I decided to do a quick fix until I get into major bodywork. Since this is only a temporary job, I'm using Plasti-Dip. If you're not familiar with Plasti-Dip, it's a spray on rubber coating available at hardware stores and online at places like www.dipyourcar.com. It comes in a variety of colors and can be used for anything from cars to tools. Plasti-dip's best feature is that while it sticks well, it's very to remove. You just start pulling at an edge, and the Dip peels off in big sheets leaving the original finish untouched. Since it's not a permanent coating, I wasn't too concerned about overspray so I didn't have to mask the whole car.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6A96t6fplCg/UfyH6B7Mk8I/AAAAAAAAAE8/XnnQMFNJYCU/s1600/SAM_1078.JPG

Most colors of Plasti-Dip cover well, but the white is pretty thin. It took a whole spray can to cover the blue primer spot. I also blended it back so I didn't end up with a hard tape line towards the top.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EvuN0cHz690/UfyH6K6j3PI/AAAAAAAAAE4/Jnx4kFWAil4/s1600/SAM_1082.JPG

One of the tricks to Dip is that you need to remove the masking right away. If you let the Dip dry, it will start peeling off as you remove the masking tape. Once it's had a few days to throughly dry, using a product like Meguiar's Ultimate Quick Wax will greatly increase it's durability. A coat of Quick Wax makes it slippery, so it doesn't have the rubbery grippy feeling of raw Plasti-Dip. Bugs won't stick to it then either and it stays much cleaner. Here she is, stripes one again continuous. Any overspray on the body simply wipes off. The color is slightly off, and there's still obviously a primer spot, but the overall look of the car is much improved by this one little detail :)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrEaO5ZvQ7c/UfyH7S_fsbI/AAAAAAAAAFI/BWEvOitDhDs/s1600/SAM_1084.JPG

For what it's worth, I drove the car with Plasti-stripes for two months last summer. People were so enamored with the car as a whole that nobody noticed that the stripes weren't real paint unless I pointed it out.

On a side note, Plasti-Dip works AWESOME on wheels too.

[Bugman Jeff]

In the e-bay ad, the previous owner described the exhaust as "sounds nasty." He was right, but not in the way he meant. It was terrible. At anything above idle, it had the classic UPS truck sound. After pulling the side sills, this is what I found. The cats had been replaced with straight pipe, and that pipe wasn't connected to the head pipes. Basically, it was running open exhaust dumped into the side sills. Above idle, the sill insulation vibrated like crazy, and it generally sounded just awful. The guy apparently confused "sounds good" with "sounds loud." Judging by the amount of carbon under the sills, he'd been running it this way for awhile. One of the very first things I did was reconnect those pipes. The pipes were shoved into the resonators so far and had been like that for so long that even with my Dad's help and some giant channellocks, it was a fight to get them back in place. This is what I found when I first took the sills off:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vhb3NVEIjnQ/Uf75G1Wq1mI/AAAAAAAAAFY/yQK9po0Shtg/s1600/SAM_1238.JPG

[ViperSmith]

Love this thread

[Bugman Jeff]

It said right in the e-bay listing that the Viper needed front brakes. When I got it, they did sound a bit grindy, so brakes were at the top of the to do list. I got some new pads and pulled the fronts brakes apart, this is what I found:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6n491i9o0Y/Uf8a0sCSPHI/AAAAAAAAAGw/QbyhBJpUbCA/s1600/SAM_1258.JPG

He wasn't kidding when he said it needed brakes! This is what original brake pads look like after 44,000 miles. Two of the pads were down to the metal backing. Fortunately the rotors weren't too scored up and I was able to turn them clean. Now where did all that pad material go...?

Found it!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/---matsh91u0/Uf8chTA_4TI/AAAAAAAAAHA/Am_eM2Pgwy8/s1600/SAM_1114.JPG

I don't think the back sides of the wheels on this car had ever been cleaned...

[My98RT10]

Holy cow!! Hard to believe someone is taking that little care of his/her Viper... and especially when it comes to safety features :confused:

[Bugman Jeff]

No kidding, this car had been pretty neglected. You haven't seen the worst of it yet... Great for me because it's all easily fixable and brought the price down to where it was in my price range :)

When I got the Viper, it had silicone smooth tubes installed in place of the stock accordion intake tubes. Who ever put them on must have bought the worlds longest hose clamps. They were about 4" too long, and just looked bad. I can't stand unsightly hose clamps, and it'd been bothering me since the day I got it. IMO, sloppy hose clamps can ruin a whole engine compartment.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xiJqxsjbLDM/UgU3ePcTvfI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/NWn6AD5SPHI/s1600/SAM_1227.JPG

I stopped down to the local Farm and Fleet, and bought a set of stainless T-clamps. They look 1000 times better already, and when I get around to it, I'll trim back some of the extra thread too.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fmuuk8NckOg/UgU4HJJaS_I/AAAAAAAAAHg/tMQUl0tdQfU/s1600/SAM_1229.JPG

While I was changing the clamps, I noticed a small but very important thing. The top alternator bolt was missing. Fortunately, the alternator could rest on the bracket, or this might have ended very badly. Be sure to look things over very carefully when you buy a used car...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x6-doLVg1xw/UgU4GUzAA-I/AAAAAAAAAHc/J3AlpMMjemM/s1600/SAM_1230.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

This part of the project was one of the most nerve wracking things I've done in a very long time. A very common problem on the '96-'97 Vipers is the hatch glass. The glue that Chrysler used to attach the hardware to the glass wasn't very good. As a result, the steel parts separate from the glass. There are even reports of the glass blowing out at high speeds if you've got the windows down. If you catch it soon enough, you can squirt in some more adhesive, and be on your way. That wasn't what happened with this car. The bond started to break, and it was never repaired. As a consequence, the metal hinge strip got all twisted and mangled up. Judging by the scrapes from the glass on the body, it'd been like this for a very long time.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-22UO1tXw_b0/Ugpsb2Cy2hI/AAAAAAAAAH0/UV_fXe0xeeU/s1600/SAM_1013.JPG

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With the hinge so bent, I couldn't just glue it back down. The hinge plate had to be removed and straightened. After careful consideration, and much internetting, I determined that a heat gun was the most likely tool to succeed at getting the glue off without damaging the glass. The first thing I did was tape around the edge of the steel so I'd have a guide as to where to put it back on. Then, using the heat gun and a plastic pry bar, I very carefully started peeling up the steel strip. Using my IR temp gun, I determined that the glue softens adequately at around 200°F. You've got to heat it slowly and evenly, a hot spot could cause the glass to shatter. With the strip off, you can see how much glue was actually there. Not much, it didn't even fully cover the surface.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8qBzgFlCckI/Ugpsbddu1TI/AAAAAAAAAH4/6lAaDF0n-EU/s1600/SAM_1160.JPG

The glue that was still on the glass was still very stuck, I felt like I might break the glass if I tried to get it all off. Instead of removing it, I very carefully ground it down with an angle grinder. I wasn't trying to remove it so much as to rough it up to give the new adhesive something to grab onto. With the steel plate off, I could get the bend straightened out and match the curve of the strip to the glass.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jFjv_zAGvlI/Ugpsd5Xn8qI/AAAAAAAAAIM/hJ5rqp_Y-zs/s1600/SAM_1163.JPG

With the glass clean, and steel straightened, it was time to glue it back on. I couldn't find a consensus on which glue to use, and the factory replacement glue is only available in big drums. For adhesive, I chose 3M's Windo-Weld (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Marine/Home/Products/Catalog/?PC_Z7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECIE20S4K7000000_nid=GS51JK DTTHgsQH8HT14PGTgl1ZRC9RGN5Fbl), available at most auto parts stores. It's black, so it will help hide any knicks or scrapes in the black etching on the glass. Actually gluing it back on was the most nerve wracking part. Ideally, you should have a uniform thickness of adhesive for the best bond. The steel has dimples in it to maintain that thickness. The problem is that window urethane is thick, and doesn't squish out easily. To get the proper "squish", I used C-clamps to clamp the strip down with even pressure. C-clamps on glass = could shatter with just slightly too much pressure. I slowly clamped the clamps every inch or so to work the excess urethane out, then spaced them evenly until it set. I also use the blanket the glass is sitting on to keep the clamps off the glass it's self.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kwPIu5AIzAk/Ugpse4jiPqI/AAAAAAAAAIU/vhp5P25qtxQ/s1600/SAM_1165.JPG

If you've used the right amount of glue, you should get a fairly uniform squish out. Remember the tape we put on? Aside from helping with alignment, it also helps keep the mess to "big" instead of "huge." You'll want to smooth the seam with your finger, a putty knife, or something like that, then wipe up any remaining urethane. While it's still soft, you can smooth it out with mineral spirits. One it's smoothed to your satisfaction, you can peel up the tape, and you should have a nice uniform edge.

In retrospect, I should have taped the strip too, the C-clamps left very faint impressions on the black paint. I let it sit clamped for 48 hours to give it ample time to cure before reinstalling. After reinstalling the glass, I parked it in the sun and didn't open the hatch for a week or so to be sure that the urethane was fully cured. Another thing too, urethane is messy. Very messy. It's a good idea to have plenty of paper towels, mineral spirits, lacquer thinner, and latex gloves on hand. While it's soft, mineral spirits and lacquer thinner will dissolve it, one it sets, it'll have to be scraped off with a razor blade.

[C.J]

Pretty clever solution to the problem with the back glass! C-clamps would have scared me silly...probably would have used the squeeze clamps with the jaws padded in rubber.

The alternator bolt would make me want to inspect every fastener on the car! Lucky that bracket gave it support. Between that and those hose clamps, an idiot must have owned that Viper at one time. The T-clamps look great...very clean look. You could even flip them for a cleaner look. I've noticed that you're really innovative with a lot of unusual repairs on your GTS. What do you do for a living?

[Bugman Jeff]

Clamping the glass down is one of the most nerve-wracking things I've ever done on a personal project. Even though it moves around quite a bit just by opening the hatch, watching the glass start to flex as I tightened the clamps was very unsettling. I thought about putting the clamps with the bolt side down, but I like the look of the T-clamps. Now that I've revisited my pics, the long bolts sticking out are really starting to bug me. I'm thinking they'll get trimmed down as soon as I get the car out of storage.

I currently work as a CNC programmer/tool and die maker, though I've only been doing that about two years. Previous to that, I was a custom car builder/old car restorer . Among other things, I restored the 486th Porsche Speedster ever build, and did a few $250K resto-mods. We did a lot of kit cars too, so I've got a ton of fiberglass experience. I actually went to college to be a Tech Ed teacher, but only did that for a few years. I find it ironic that neither of my longest lasting career choices have anything to do with my college degree, but I wouldn't be where I am now without it.

[Bugman Jeff]

Aside from the crunched fiberglass, the worst part of the exterior of the Viper was the gas cap. Chrysler seems to have used the cheapest aluminum possible, and mine was very dull and oxidized. It was actually the only part of corroded aluminum on the thing, not bad for a car from the Pacific North West.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GPDbC_LW4xI/Uguul53ZfpI/AAAAAAAAAIg/DS_22Gw25TY/s1600/SAM_1040.JPG

Taking it off to repolish is easy, it's only four screws. I used my buffing wheel on the bench grinder with some jeweler's rouge to shine it back up. Rouge isn't the best compound for aluminum, but it gets the job done, and I had some handy. Because of the low quality of the aluminum, it won't ever get mirror shiny, but it buffed up very nicely. I didn't disassemble it, but I was able to get to all but the tightest nooks and crannies.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J5mfSsIJBBY/Uguvah4-pCI/AAAAAAAAAIs/UeeomlQefZw/s1600/SAM_1135.JPG

I'm about the age where Transformers was popular when I was growing up. In fact, it was my favorite show(current movies not withstanding). I've always held a special regard for it, and consequently, all my vehicles get Autobot symbols. The Viper had to have one too, and the gas cap was the perfect place. The symbol is a red chrome vinyl decal I got on e-bay.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ABuJ5tU1cDk/UguwcaNaosI/AAAAAAAAAI8/kaE_Xzaj2BI/s1600/SAM_1183.JPG

As an aside, I totally made some kid's day because of that decal. I was at the gas station with the Viper, in the stall next to me was a mom with her 6 year old son. He was playing with a Transformer and he started looking my car over and asking me questions about it. When I shut the gas cap, he saw the Autobot symbol and flipped out. He said Transformer cars are the coolest ones ever! I told him he could sit in it if he wanted, with his Mom's permission. He looked up at her with the "Please please I'll eat all my vegetables" look that kids do so well, and she said yes. I don't remember the last time I saw a kid so excited :)

[C.J]

Wow, no wonder you have great solutions to the, ah, challenges your Viper has offered!

Regarding the Speedster, what was your impression of the build quality of that Porsche? They always struck me as not very stiff.

[Bugman Jeff]

The build quality on the Speedster was pretty good. It's old enough that it was still almost entirely hand made, there were obvious hand fit marks all over the place once I started taking it apart. All the panel gaps were leaded and hand fit, and all the panels were serial numbered to the car. I was surprised by the amount of lead in it. The chassis it's self seemed rigid enough. Even with the floor pans mostly rusted away, the door gaps didn't change regardless of where I had the lift arms or jack stands(though the floor it's self isn't a structural member). I never drove it hard enough to notice any chassis flex on the road.

[C.J]

Pretty impressive that the Speedster would be that stiff. That must have been a neat experience to work on that old Speedster!

[Bugman Jeff]

Mechanically, it was very similar to my VWs. It had been "restored" in the 70's, so the fun was in tracking down original parts, figuring out what was correct for the car(Porsche had a lot of poorly documented running changes in the early days) and in recreating all the little details. I didn't go quite as far as the paint dab and factory overspray Vette restorers, but I did as much as available documentation would allow. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that while I have hundreds of close up detail pictures of it I used during the restoration, I have very few overall pics.

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http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Q169LpFFMk/Uz5yEtIl2cI/AAAAAAAAAco/3HvaVrKmtaY/s1600/DSC07562.JPG

It was pretty rough when we got it, the under side was pretty rusty, and the previous "restoration" wasn't great. We farmed out the seats, and I didn't recover the convertible top or do the exterior body paint work, but nearly everything else was my doing. Like all the cars I've built, there are things that I'm not satisfied with, but overall I think it turned out OK, lousy pictures not withstanding.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hBH7b7jwCk0/Uz5ypF8-siI/AAAAAAAAAdI/9MsZiA0c2VQ/s1600/IMG_8388-Edit.jpg

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[C.J]

Wow, stunning car! The drum brakes look very narrow, and the undercarriage looks factory fresh!

[V1P3R]

Very cool! Like the white, I have mostly seen only black or silver.

[ViperSmith]

I am too anally retentive to do something like that, imperfections would drive me insane! looks amazing

[Bugman Jeff]

Thanks for the compliments. Since I'm in a bragging mood, it won every concourse the owner took it to before he sold it :) The things that still bug me about it are the things I know aren't correct but I had to leave because I couldn't find the correct parts, and couldn't replicate them from scratch. Fortunately, I'm the only person that will ever notice most of them.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program. The former owner of the Viper had dogs. Two small long hair dogs to be exact. Apparently they loved to go on car rides because every square inch of this thing was covered in dog fur. Worse yet, the long fur was thoroughly woven into the carpet. Thank goodness they were clean dogs so it didn't smell too. The interior also had a general "never been detailed" look about it too, and there were a couple splotches of white paint on the leather.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6nExKxBrdlk/UhDQ5_TfjkI/AAAAAAAAAJM/dLpRmrOjJWU/s1600/SAM_1002.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G8oxzK7z4ys/UhDQ7FaDQuI/AAAAAAAAAJU/vcLxBslRw2Q/s1600/SAM_1010.JPG

Seriously, how does someone get this much dog fur under the seat!?!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BDsX5i1ZWfE/UhDQ7Y4LkqI/AAAAAAAAAJY/ZA2ufDOWtk4/s1600/SAM_1171.JPG

A full 8 hours of just vacuuming and duct taping the carpet, and it was finally dog hair free. Then I spent another 4-5 hours scrubbing every interior surface with Simple Green, followed with a liberal dose of Mother's VLR detail spray. I removed what panels could be removed and cleaned behind them too. It was absolutely filthy under the radio bezel. Mineral spirits was used to get the paint splotches off. It's mild enough that it won't harm the leather, and it got the job done. There's just something very satisfying about a (nearly) spotless interior :)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_apZQulNhWE/UhDU6x2rMvI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/YeuuibR1gew/s1600/SAM_1186.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0j1aQQdfrkQ/UhDU42X6RXI/AAAAAAAAAJo/GBqXGAWiHjs/s1600/SAM_1188.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Q5xP6LIWPA/UhDU5ftypMI/AAAAAAAAAJs/LJImWENEgyk/s1600/SAM_1190.JPG

[coupe]

Looking great Jeff. Keep up the awesome work and updates!

[Thawk97]

So fun to watch this car brought back to life - keep it coming!

[C.J]

What a difference! Your use of duct tape to get the fur out of carpet is excellent! My cat is mostly Maine Coon and figured out that an RT/10 with the back glass out makes for a cozy place to sleep. He would curl up on the floor mats and his fur is woven into the mat! I'll give the duct tape method a go and see if that works. The vacuum didn't remove much of it. Nice kitty.

[Bugman Jeff]

The duct tape worked wonders, though it was still slow going. I probably went through 1/4 roll, but then too every inch of this thing was covered in fur.

[Bugman Jeff]

The Viper didn't come with any floor mats. Since I didn't want to wear holes in the carpet, I had to get a set of mats. There are a lot of Viper specific mats on the market that have the Viper logo on them like the originals. These mats start at around $100 and go up from there. Now, I know it's a Viper, and anybody riding in it knows it's a Viper, so I didn't feel the need to spend that kind of money for simple floor mats and another logo. Instead, I went down to my local Farm and Fleet(that would be like a Tractor Supply Company for those of you not in the upper Midwest), and picked up a set of THESE (http://www.farmandfleet.com/products/611657-kraco-premium-carpet-and-rubber-car-floor-mat-set.html#.U0LELFdoNwt). They don't fit perfect, but the fit is very good, they are decent quality, and are nice and cheap :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0NSqCWK1jYY/UhEC9IbiIUI/AAAAAAAAAKI/1DudfeT6A_Y/s1600/SAM_1291.JPG

[Thawk97]

This has always been something I'm curious about - did the early GTS's come with floor mats of any kind? I see the aftermarket embroidered ones everywhere, but was never sure if there were factory ones. My original window sticker doesn't list any

[Bugman Jeff]

I've never seen a late model car that didn't come with floor mats, but I haven't seen a completely original '96 in person since the Chicago auto show in 1995. THIS (http://www.legendarymotorcar.com/site2/listing/1996-dodge-viper-gts-in-the-wrapper-with-only-380-original-miles/) 800 mile original looks like it has them still wrapped on the floor. Can anyone else confirm or deny?

[Bugman Jeff]

This car has had a rough life. The paint was in terrible shape. It was covered in scuffs and scratches, and the roof had been keyed. There were even spots where it looked like someone tried to clean gunk off with a Scotch Brite pad, leaving dull spots all over the body. There were also scrapes of white paint on top of the paint, whatever the previous owner slid into rubbed off onto the body. That came off with some mineral spirits. I used my trusty Harbor Freight 3" polisher (http://www.harborfreight.com/3-inch-pneumatic-polisher-kit-99934.html) and some 3M rubbing compound to get the paint nice and shiny again. The scratches that went all the way through the paint got some touch up paint dabbed in. It's not perfect, and most of the scratches were too deep to actually buff out, but they're much less noticeable than they were. Here are some of the worst areas:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PnggqoQydWs/UhjvubmxvUI/AAAAAAAAAKw/umVkcNM5HY0/s1600/1.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YVf4WWlPvrI/UhjvuQwVkTI/AAAAAAAAAKo/fOgaJpPxdlM/s1600/2.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9pCl4dsy_Pw/UhjvuU9-ySI/AAAAAAAAAKs/gQgxoJJZdZI/s1600/3.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0aEsH2S1MK4/Uhjvz3aygmI/AAAAAAAAALA/CC41gTZiuq0/s1600/4.jpg

[V1P3R]

taking shape nicely! doing a great job using passion and personal care to bring her back to life!

keep posting pics and progress!

[C.J]

The day you bought this Viper was the luckiest day this Viper has ever experienced. Was there one thing on this car that wasn't messed up when you bought it?

[gutterworks129]

Craig, you need a project like this one to play with. Very self rewarding as the project goes on.

[C.J]

Craig, you need a project like this one to play with. Very self rewarding as the project goes on.

I have one...the '77 Vette. Nothing as challenging as Bugman's project, but it has been an ongoing project. Both front calipers were leaking (lip seal calipers) and a mess, so I installed rebuilt Delco Moraine calipers with new Delco organic pads. Just ordered KYB shocks and got some of the "machine grey" paint so they will be the correct color. Next up will be to swap fluids in the trans and diff, then pull the dash clock and get that running again. After that, it is just a matter of going through and cleaning things up and enjoying it! With only 180 HP and 280 lb/ft, it isn't that fast but it's still entertaining to drive. Let me know when you're ready for a retro ride!

[Bugman Jeff]

The day you bought this Viper was the luckiest day this Viper has ever experienced. Was there one thing on this car that wasn't messed up when you bought it?
That's a tough one. The only thing that really springs to mind is that underneath all the goo from the oil leak, the chassis and undercarriage are nearly spotless. Surprisingly since it's a Seattle car, there's not a speck of rust on it anywhere :)

I'd love to see your C3. I've got a soft spot for C3's myself, and a penchant for abused and neglected cars apparently. Here's my '73. It was my first foray into real sports cars. I'm only the 3rd owner, the lady I bought it from bought it used in 1974. It's an L48, 4 speed car, and about as base model as you can get. The only option is the AM/FM radio. The paint is rough(and missing in places), interior fair, and the frame and birdcage are very solid. Since it's had so few owners, it's never been dicked with and was still completely stock and original when I got it(even the spare tire is one of the originals off the car). I put on the wheels and side pipes because C3s are supposed to have Torq Thrusts and sidepipes. I also swapped on Vortec heads and a mild cam, keeping anything original and date coded wrapped up for safe keeping. The G-Tech dyno says I'm getting around 250 RWHP. It's still not fast, but faster than the wheezy 190 FWHP it had and pretty cheap to boot. It may get restored some day, but for now I've declared it "Done" for now because it's fun to drive as is, and it still in an original unrestored state(everything I've done is easily undoable).
When I got it:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yd5BvamFcj4/U0Vp8BCWXoI/AAAAAAAAAeA/LbbEEZpFp6A/s1600/DSC03646.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dt4aI5ltPTc/U0Vp8wxz5bI/AAAAAAAAAeI/oUGYXtn3Nks/s1600/DSC03647.JPG

Now:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MMPip4QXbws/U0VqEmpkxQI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/aAMPsqrwElo/s1600/DSC04399.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kbS2mL5J3sA/U0VqFIbWgjI/AAAAAAAAAeY/_ulr9zCuS_4/s1600/DSC04400.JPG

[C.J]

No rust, that is pretty amazing.

Wow, your Vette looks great! Those wheels take me right back to high school...everyone had those wheels or Cragar SS wheels on their rides.

I also have an L-48, 4 speed, a/c, p/w, tilt, 8-track (yeah baby!), with a dealer-installed luggage rack. Bought it from the original owner with 41,120 miles on it. Really wasn't planning on buying it, but it's tough to pass up something like this. Here's the thread with photos: http://driveviper.com/forums/threads/1778-Accidental-Purchase?highlight=accidental+purchase

[Bugman Jeff]

I don't know how I missed that thread. Sharp looking car, and amazingly original.

Even after reconnecting the cat delete pipes on the Viper, I still had an exhaust leak. The connections between the manifolds and the pipes had an annoying tick tick tick. New gaskets were cheap and I found the easiest way to get to the connections was to remove the side sills and use some long extensions on the flange bolts. The bolts were rusted, so I used a little known trick to get them off without breaking. I took the car for a drive to get the exhaust good and hot, then melted some beeswax onto the nuts and let it sit 15 minutes or so. It sounds stupid, but beeswax is the best penetrating lubricant I've ever used(and I've tried them all). I've tested it back to back with other penetrating lubes, and it wins hands down. I got a block of beeswax at my local Hobby Lobby for $10, and it's lasted for years. After letting the beeswax soak in, the nuts came right off.

While you can get the pipe disconnected with the sill on, you can't get to the gasket well enough to scrape the surface clean. As expected, the gaskets came off easily, except for the small section that I can't really reach with a scraper. You guys who work on your own cars know exactly what I mean...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4aOGuZUEo6c/UiIRUOjuQmI/AAAAAAAAALQ/4LQBvUnj3m0/s1600/SAM_1329.JPG

[C.J]

Thanks. I feel very fortunate to have that Vette.

Bee's wax...how did you learn about that? I've used Kroil in the past and it works well, but bee's wax...that's incredible! It just wouldn't dawn on me to use (much less have on hand) bees' wax as a penetrating lube. That is so cool, thanks for sharing that tip!

[Indy]

Nice job! :) It would have been a shame to let a B/W GTS go to waste.

[Getnlwr]

I love this thread. Way to bring it back to what it's supposed to be.

[Bugman Jeff]

Bee's wax...how did you learn about that? I've used Kroil in the past and it works well, but bee's wax...that's incredible! It just wouldn't dawn on me to use (much less have on hand) bees' wax as a penetrating lube. That is so cool, thanks for sharing that tip!

Just one of the tidbits I've picked up over the years. I'm a Kroil fan too, and still use it where wax won't work(mostly frozen engines or things I can't heat). Anything I can safely heat gets waxed. You want it hot enough that it's good and hot all the way through, but not so hot that the wax vaporizes. It vaporizes around 650°F, so there's a lot of head room there, though I've found that like most penetrating lubes, the hotter the better. I dab more on every few minutes until it's cool enough that the wax starts to solidify. I've used regular paraffin wax candles in a pinch with good results too, but I've found the beeswax works a little better.

[Bugman Jeff]

Just a quick tip for today. After all that cleaning, the interior was looking pretty good. The one place that still looked terrible was the door panels. The door carpet on the Gen II Vipers leaves a lot to be desired. With use, it tends to pill up, and generally look awful. Such was the case with my car. A bit of trimming with some scissors, and it's back to looking like new :)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F8atR3JOd5U/UiKhOHSAFPI/AAAAAAAAALg/kzEPhipNafM/s1600/door.jpg

[Indy]

Nice hair cut :)

[S2K1]

This is a great thread! Good to see this Viper getting the attention it deserves.

[BlknBlu]

a cheap bic razor works well too for removing the excess carpet strands.

looking good.

Bruce

[Bugman Jeff]

I had to remove my console to fix it. Like everything I've taken apart, this was a mess too. Seriously, how does someone get this much sand and dog fur under the console?!?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ORInt8aa5Pw/UiS627M_q-I/AAAAAAAAALw/CH5ZoPsiFyA/s1600/SAM_1335.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

As I eluded to above, another flaw in the Gen II Vipers is the center console. It's a large molded PVC piece, but it's only got four tiny posts under it for support. If you lean on it too hard, it will crack. If it cracks and you don't fix it, the vinyl covering will begin to tear. Mine was cracked, and the vinyl was just starting to tear by the e-brake boot. Here you can clearly see the problem.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M0G2LwcpVoA/Uizk5Ql-3UI/AAAAAAAAAMA/JpKfmiW_rZg/s1600/SAM_1337.JPG

After doing much research, I decided to use fiberglass as my main repair material. Polyester fiberglass resin does stick to PVC, though it relies more heavily on a mechanical bond than a chemical one. Plus, I had everything necessary already. The first step was to do a whole lot pre cleaning. These consoles are notorious for being covered in mold release compound. I used mineral spirits, followed by acetone to clean the surface, then repeated the process a couple times. With that done, I roughed up the whole bottom side with some 36 grit sandpaper. This gives the resin some "tooth" to grab onto. Then more cleaning. Then I planned out where I wanted to put the fiberglass. I decided that since I'm doing it anyway, I may as well use it for reinforcement too. I went shopping in my fiberglass scraps box and laid out overlapping layers of mat where I wanted it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jD3w4wFb6KQ/Uizmjavh4KI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/i8AQPyftWQ0/s1600/SAM_1338.JPG

With that done, I set the mat off to the side and started the lay up process. It's pretty simple, put a piece down, work the resin into it, work the bubbles out of it, and repeat. If you mix it right, you should have 20-30 minutes of work time before it sets up. When I had all my pre fit layers down down, I still had resin left so I added even more layers.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tX99r71wwCM/UiznkC0d6EI/AAAAAAAAAMY/n_S5-g3wgGI/s1600/SAM_1341.JPG

All told, there's almost 1/4" of mat over the whole thing, with it approaching 3/8" thick in some areas. This thing is now almost solid enough to stand on. I also put a piece of plywood on the trans tunnel to add some support across the e-brake recess. No pics of that, but really, it's just plywood.

[C.J]

Looks bulletproof now.

BTW, how many miles were on your GTS when you bought it?

[Bugman Jeff]

44K and change. Brake pads and all fluids except the engine oil had never been changed as best as I could tell.

[C.J]

Why do people treat cars so poorly? The previous owner's neglect of this GTS is really astounding.

[Bugman Jeff]

Why do people treat cars so poorly? The previous owner's neglect of this GTS is really astounding.

I'm always hesitant to make judgments about people I don't know well. The previous owner seemed like a nice guy, but he wasn't the brightest. For example: one of the reasons he was selling the Viper was because he was behind on his mortgage. So, he sold the car and what did he do with the money? Buy a Jeep and a motorcycle.

[Bugman Jeff]

The stock CD player in my '97 GTS didn't work when I got it. Here's what it did: Any time I turn the ignition on, the player tries to eject a disc, even if no disc is present. When I try to insert a disc, it will not suck the disc in, doesn't matter if the radio is on or off. If I push a disc in, it won't play, but still ejects ok. Any time it ejects, the ejector mechanism click multiple times. Here's a video showing exactly what it was doing:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phnhIMDlGMQ

It took some disassembling, but I found the problem. I had the CD player section out of the radio chassis(only 4 screws hold the CD player assembly into the radio chassis), and I made a discovery. The bottom of the CD player has three ribbon cable connecting the bottom circuit board to the rest of CD player. When I pulled them out of their housings, I noticed that there were little dents in the contact surfaces. From working with the digital speedo in the Mighty Caprice™, I know that this can cause all sorts of odd behavior. The way these contacts work is there is a spring loaded "finger" that presses on the cable contact pad. Over time, the spring tension can dent the cable, making contact spotty. I wiggled these cables around a bit, and reassembled everything. Low and behold, it works! After reassembling, it's still working like it's supposed to. If it goes wonky again I've got a technique for filling in the little dents that I'll try out. Here's a pic of the bottom of the CD player section. You can see dents in the cable. All three of the ribbon cables have similar little cable dents.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fUqe46WP2lY/Ui0aVbT72fI/AAAAAAAAAMo/akEIPklO150/s1600/full.jpg

[Bugman Jeff]

At this point in my rebuild, the car was pretty presentable so I decided to take some decent pictures of it(also, I'm a picture whore). Here's how far it had come since I got it:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-txowtQ5bmUY/Uj5E1o5JmyI/AAAAAAAAAOE/uE9yw_FAtew/s1600/SAM_1204.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-umPdC3jAn4I/Uj5JHec9t_I/AAAAAAAAAOk/EdugGJAng2A/s1600/SAM_1217a.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KQWZU-j0TW0/Uj5E2F21JYI/AAAAAAAAAOM/WTPOUfhEVS8/s1600/SAM_1221a.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y8oulNljOlI/Uj5FuO-PZHI/AAAAAAAAAOY/EEOToZY-wfQ/s1600/SAM_1215.JPG

[Indy]

Nice! What a difference, compared to your first post! :)
What's next on your list?

[Bugman Jeff]

With most of the "needs to be done" stuff out of the way, except for the body/paint work a lot of what's left is piddly little stuff. Also, you'll notice that there are no exhaust tips showing in the above pics... :)

[V1P3R]

It does look a little different....JUST A TAD!

[C.J]

Huge difference, looks great! Funny, I didn't notice the missing exhaust tips when I looked at those photos.

The amazing part to consider is how many of your fixes are not really visible. Stereo, console fix, hatch glass fix, brake pads, etc, but they are all important.

[Bugman Jeff]

One of my few genuine complaints about the Viper is the clutch throw. You've got to step the pedal down a long way. I'm 5'10", and when I adjusted the seat and pedals to where the gas, brake, and steering wheel were most comfortable, I had to fully extend my leg to get the clutch all the way down. The pedal is connected to the clutch master cylinder with a linkage. Installing a shorter link is supposed to shorten the clutch throw. There is one commercially available from Roe, but it's just a bar with some holes in it, so I just made my own. My new link is 5 5/8" x 3/4" x 1/4", with 1/2" holes on 4 3/4" centers. Both the original and new link are aluminum. Here's the new shorter link next to the original:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xcdTSWXYWCk/Uj5QeoYPHEI/AAAAAAAAAO0/NJ9_o3KYwGg/s1600/SAM_1391.JPG

My new link is about as short as you can go. Any shorter, and you start getting interference in the mechanism. I also don't think the new link actually changes the clutch throw much, if at all, I think it just moves the pedal in relation to the others. Looking at how the linkage works, it doesn't change the pivot points, it moves the pedal similar to how the pedal adjuster knob moves it.

The new link moved the clutch pedal down, and it was still a stretch for me to get the clutch fully disengaged. Fortunately, the Gen II GTS has fully adjustable pedals. All three pedal adjuster cables are tied into one knob under the dash. By removing the adjustment cables from the central hub, you can individually adjust the pedals. With the cable disconnected, I moved the clutch up in relation to the other pedals so I don't have to extend my leg as far. Between the new link moving the pedal down, and the cable moving it up, I got it to where it was comfortable for me to use without having to stretch for the pedal. While I was at it, I moved the gas pedal up a bit too so heel-toe shifting is easier(and I suck at it, so I need all the help I can get). I also greased all the plastic bushings with some silicone grease to get rid of a squeak in the mechanism.

[Sybil TF]

Nice job!!

[Bugman Jeff]

My other main complaint about the Viper is that it was too quiet. The stock exhaust, even without cats, sounded pretty wimpy and was way too quiet. A couple of times, I almost forgot to shift out of 3rd on the highway because it was so quiet. I also didn't like the look of the stock exhaust tips. One of the first things I did was remove the stock rear muffler. Viper catbacks are all pretty expensive, way more than I want to spend. There are a couple muffler delete pipes on the market too, but even they come in at around $500. I decided I'd just make my own. I chose 304 stainless so it'll look good for years to come. Here's what I started with. 8' of 2.5" tube, 1' 2.25 tube, one 180°-45° bend pipe, some stainless rod, 2.25" band clamps, and a pair of Yonaka 3.5" polished tips. I can tell already that this is going to be an exhausting experience...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b6jXH6A0TOo/UkMSQLKF_zI/AAAAAAAAAPE/ur8gZ5G2vmA/s1600/SAM_1263.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

More work on the Viper's exhaust. The first order of business after removing the stock muffler was to locate the tips exactly where I wanted them. Using plywood shims and duct tape, I hung the tips in the bumper cut out at the right angle and with the stick out I wanted.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RuoeCDR_Yfc/UksBxKDWZFI/AAAAAAAAAPU/ajjS4bbkoBY/s1600/SAM_1267.JPG

Then, I stared making the pipes, tediously cutting and fitting a bend at a time, working my way forward toward the stock pipes. I forgot to take pics along the way, but there's not much to it. Since I'm using 304 stainless tubing, the plan was to tig weld the whole thing together. I don't have a tig welder at home, so I bought a small spool of stainless wire for my mig to tack everything together. When I finish weld it, the stainless tacks will melt in with the rest of the filler.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dp2n1yFxxHw/UksClvkdTAI/AAAAAAAAAPc/d6u4brA6LGg/s1600/SAM_1270.JPG

Since the stock exhaust is 2 1/4", and I'm using 2 1/2" tubing, I needed some adapters. Stainless adapters are really expensive, so I made my own by flaring a bell shape on the end of some 2 1/4" pipe. I'm using band clamps at the joint between stock pipe and the new stuff. As it turns out, a 180° and a 45° provide the exact right amount of bend that you need to get from here to there. Here it is all tacked together. The hangers still need trimming, but it's pretty much ready to weld.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z1AM6mtdM-E/UksD0zm8OnI/AAAAAAAAAPo/AuC3PcNpKQU/s1600/SAM_1273.JPG

[Indy]

Nicely done. Post a sound clip when you're done with the exhaust!

[C.J]

Looks good! I like that size exhaust tip...always thought the Corsa tip looked oversized.

How much weight do you save by eliminating the stock muffler?

[Bugman Jeff]

My bathroom scale says the stock muffler is around 30 Lbs. Though I didn't think to weight the new pipes, I'd say they are 8-10 Lbs, so you're saving around 20 lbs by eliminating the stock muffler.

[VoodooRob]

Looks great, good job on fitment. Are you going to install a crossover tube where muffler was? Just curious don't know the good or bad of it. My BB rear muffler delete has a crossover.

[Bugman Jeff]

Nope, no crossover. On the Viper, with the crossover so far back, you'll only get a marginal performance increase, the biggest bonus is that it'll cut down the drone. I prefer my exhausts uncrossed for the simple reason that if it starts missing, it's very easy to see/hear which bank isn't firing right.

[Bugman Jeff]

Here's the finished piece. I'm used to welding aluminum, and I was a bit out of practice on Stainless. These are some of the sloppiest tig welds I've done in a long time. Honestly, I'm not real happy with how it turned out. It will work, but I know I could have done better. I've half a mind to grind all the welds down and lay nice decorative welds on top of them. I used Scotch-Brite to give the pipes a nice finish. All told, I've only got around $150 in it.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1UKJUhxZcu8/UlLtAtYHDuI/AAAAAAAAAQA/WIZ6LHTU7Wk/s1600/SAM_1277.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E-V2jnKk04Y/UlLtAYc3uWI/AAAAAAAAAP8/i-k__wyp7p4/s1600/SAM_1281.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uIXeeg2dqs4/UlLtA9uxtwI/AAAAAAAAAQE/SQLYjiXlEYw/s1600/SAM_1285.JPG

It sounds pretty good. It's loud without being obnoxious, and it's got much more bass rumble than the Corsas I've heard. It's got a lot of drone at certain RPMs, but it doesn't really bother me, it is a sports car after all. It's not the thump of a V8, nor the whine of a V12, but it's own unique sound. For what it cost, I'm very happy with the sound. Here it is, no cats, no rear muffler, just the stock side sill resonators.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrekiUuHVDw

[gage]

I say for the price you did damn well. It is a bit raspy I think but that's a taste thing. It could probably be resolved by replacing the resonators with bullet mufflers in the side pipes

[Indy]

Hold on tight :)
Sound clips never do a car justice, because in essence, your computer speakers are the exhaust...which is not always a good thing.
I replaced my side resonators with bullet mufflers. Compared to the rear exhaust you fabbed, that would be a piece of cake.
cheers

[Indy]

Here's my setup. Rear is like yours:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/Indyjones007/exhaustrearsmall_zps03859063.jpg

Side has high flow cats and bullet mufflers:
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/Indyjones007/exhaustmod2small_zps025bb436.jpg

Sounds great (imo), easy to do, not too expensive :)

[slowhatch]

Car is really coming along. Keep the posts comin.

[Bugman Jeff]

Indy, is your rear pipe the one from Snake Oyl?

[Indy]

Indy, is your rear pipe the one from Snake Oyl?
No, I welded that myself. I cut out the muffler and welded in some straight pipes. Seemed the best solution, since I could reuse most of the tubing of the rear section.

[Bugman Jeff]

Gotcha. It looks good, I was thrown off by the amount of shiny.

[Bugman Jeff]

The Viper's idle quality had been becoming increasingly erratic over the few months I drove it. The problem is that the IAC gets carboned up and sticky. It wasn't enough to really trouble me, so I let it slide for awhile. Lately though, it'd gotten bad enough that it would sometimes stall when coming up to a stop sign. It's reasonably common on higher mileage cars, and at 46K miles, mine was due for a cleaning and I decided I should probably just fix it. The IAC is on the passenger's side of the intake, and is held on with just two bolts, with a big hose running to the air box. Since Acetone is the primary ingredient in many carb and throttle body cleaners, that's what I used, along with a tooth brush and some q-tips to clean all the way around the valve. Then I sprayed the whole thing off with TB cleaner.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U5VdwnVYOfg/UlwaTgfwTpI/AAAAAAAAAQc/TT2kno7lsTc/s1600/iac.jpg

While I was at it, I decided to clean the throttle bodies too for good measure. They get a ring of gunk around where the throttle blades seal, and can sometimes cause some issues. Same thing here, Acetone and a tooth brush, followed by TB cleaner. You'll want to use a specific TB cleaner, some standard carb cleaners may eat the coating on coated throttle blades. I don't know if the Viper's blades are coated or not, so I stuck with TB cleaner.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7s-gskoLF3c/Ulwbx4X2yEI/AAAAAAAAAQo/6nH2XKlrqyQ/s1600/tb.jpg

I noticed an immediate difference in the way the car runs after cleaning. It starts quicker, and the idle is much more consistent. If I'd known it would make so much difference, I'd have done it much sooner.

[C.J]

When working on a friend's RT/10 this past Saturday, we found the TBs had a fair amount of gunk behind the TB plates. The passenger side had more stuff, maybe from the IAC hose that feeds into the air box on the passenger side.

I'll check my IAC too...it may be due for a cleaning. Great pics, and thanks for the tip about acetone!

[Indy]

I clean my TB and IAC every year, those carbon deposits can really affect how the engine is running. Good advice and great before&after pics!

[Thawk97]

Did you use pure acetone or watered down stuff (nail polish remover)?

[Bugman Jeff]

Pure acetone. I do enough fiberglass work that I've always got some around. Like you said, nail polish remover is generally watered down, and it's also often got moisturizers and other good for your skin but useless for your car additives. A gallon only runs me around $12 from my local Farm and Fleet these days.

[Bugman Jeff]

I came across a minor mystery on my car. The first of the 5 spoke Viper wheels were cast instead of forged. It's well known that because of this, they have a tendency to crack. It's primarily the '96 cars that were affected, and there was some bleed over into early '97 before they changed to a forged wheel. The easy way to tell is that the cast wheels have a weld going around the inside of the center, where the center is welded to the hoop. My car was built in April, and everything I've read says that all '96 wheels and early production '97s were cast. My wheels don't seem to fit in with that though. They have no weld, indicating that they're the later forged wheels, but they have a '96 build date. I keep a close eye on them and don't see any cracks, but the build date keeps me from having complete piece of mind. Can anybody shed any light on exactly when the change happened?
The build date:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oMuNAhn2UlI/Ul7KkFjQftI/AAAAAAAAARQ/sat8O9WDeEs/s1600/SAM_1442.JPG

The lip, clearly with no weld on the inside:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obWwSGFWb5A/Ul7KlqZDqLI/AAAAAAAAARY/BjNi4lgFCoA/s1600/SAM_1445.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm used to driving very low cars, heck for many years, my '55 Plymouth had just 3/4" between the skid plate and the ground. Because of that, I'm used to watching where I drive and occasionally scraping the road. Sometimes though, I get myself into an unavoidable scraping situation. When I got the Viper, I noticed that the bottom of the bumper was very scraped up from it's previous owners. The air dam section I can live with(and I have to fix it anyway), but a large section of the chin is very scuffed and I'd rather not wear a hole in it.

There is a company that makes a bolt on chin guard, but it stands out too much for my liking, and if you really smack something, you'll bend the "fingers" and then it looks really bad. I decided to make my own. I used 1/8" x 1" aluminum with some 3M trim and emblem tape. The bars are curved to match the bumper, and the paint rubs told me where to put them. You can just barely see the tips sticking out when the car is on the ground, not enough that most people ever notice. I've had them on for a awhile now and they've taken a few minor scrapes alright. My thinking is that if they ever do fall off or get scraped off, I'm only out a few bucks vs. the protection they offer for every day driving. The won't protect the air dam, but the dam is a much easier fix than a hole rubbed through the chin.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Oft3op_Mz2s/Umf1GL_vGyI/AAAAAAAAARo/x8je58zFn-0/s1600/SAM_1411.JPG

[C.J]

Great idea Bugman! Neat and tidy but does the job.

[Indy]

Good work with the sliders- it does look like the previous owner took some driveways to fast. It helps if you go at an angle. Also, it looks like the lower lip is close to being ripped off on one side....you might want to reinforce it on the back.

[Bugman Jeff]

The air dam lip is torn loose almost all the way across the bumper. It's near the top of the "things to fix this summer" list.

[Bugman Jeff]

This is just a public service announcement. A lot of people seem to have trouble reading the Viper's tach(including myself when I first got mine). I've seen a number of posts on all the Viper forums with people saying their cars idle way too low. People claim their car idles at 400 RPM, but really it's closer to 750. A lot of people overlook the very first mark on the tach. After zero, the first mark is the 500 RPM mark. Here, displaying my awesome MS Paint skills, is how the tach ticks read.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HZ62a-A-Cqg/UnlFfuQxE-I/AAAAAAAAASI/z0GMcR46mvw/s1600/tach.jpg

[C.J]

Good info...I'd never really focused much on that first hash mark.

BTW, I cleaned out my IAC and used a carbon remover for firearms. Sprayed some on a q-tip and it cleaned it up the IAC quickly. Probably went through 8 or 9 q-tips, but the unit is spotless now. Thanks again for posting about the IAC.

[Indy]

People claim their car idles at 400 RPM, but really it's closer to 750. Yeah, that is a constant source of confusion...although it's pretty obvious if you study the tach up close.

[Bugman Jeff]

Being a single guy, I don't have anyone to buy Christmas presents for, so I buy them for myself. Then I wrap them and act all surprised when I open them. This year was no different. Here's what I got myself:

The first one is a practical necessity. It's a, Ipsco aluminum power steering pump bracket and pulley set. The stock die cast Viper PS pump bracket is notoriously weak and prone to breaking. The stock plastic PS pulley also has a habit of cracking unexpectedly. Either will ruin your day pretty quick. These aftermarket parts will outlast the car, and give me one less thing to worry about. When I put them on, I'll take pics of the stock parts next to these, and you'll see why they're necessary.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DR_NgIBGrug/UuKTcYR_S3I/AAAAAAAAAVQ/q4p2ecw77Vw/s1600/SAM_1779.JPG

The second thing I bought is also a safety item(Ha!), and will enhance the driving experience. Anyone who's ever driven my car has heard me say "Don't accidentally shift into 2nd when you mean to hit 4th, it doesn't end well." This is because the stock Viper shifter is only "adequate" at best, and not very precise. Without excellent technique, you can easily go 3-2 instead of 3-4, and there's a very good chance you'll end up backwards in a ditch when it happens. Since these cars actively try to kill their drivers, anything to make them easier to drive is welcome. To fix this particular issue, I bought an aftermarket shifter. There are only two currently available, this one, and the one from Hurst. The Hurst is a repurposed Mustang unit and because of that, it's not a direct fit. It requires some trimming under the ash tray to fit. The Ipsco piece on the other hand is a direct fit, and according to the reviews so far, is the best Viper shifter ever made(never mind the fact that it's the only one currently available that doesn't require modifying the car to install). It also shortens up the shifter throw, so you don't have to move the lever as far between gears making shifts quicker. The more positive action and shorter throw add up to a better(and safer) driving experience.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aw_A4eQ_tcA/UuKW0jNsxrI/AAAAAAAAAVc/DcTqsgBlckQ/s1600/SAM_1783.JPG

[Thawk97]

Excellent - I just did the P/S pulley and bracket this week. Everyone said that bottom bolt was hard to get off (I didn't think it was) but nobody mentioned what a pain the return hose can be (it was insanely difficult to get off and put on - I ended up cutting it off and replacing it and I could barely get the new one on!).

The stock stuff:
4669

[C.J]

IPSCO is first-class stuff. I have the STS and will install it when the motivation hits. The pulley and bracket have been since the second month I owned my Viper. Here's a pic of the unit that a friend and I installed in his RT/10 just the other weekend:
4672

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm nearly out of updates, there were only a few more things I'd done before I parked it for the winter, and it's been too cold for me to do much with it this spring. One day when I was pulling into my driveway, it started making a horrible rattly grindy sound. My immediately thought was a broken power steering pulley, since they're known to break. It wasn't. After some quick investigating, I discovered that the cooling fan wasn't spinning like it should. After taking the fan out, here's what I found:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s9BK6Xq3VUA/Ux0yuDyHb5I/AAAAAAAAAZE/vgvfsAmPAwY/s1600/SAM_1504.JPG

If you've never had a fan apart, there's supposed to be a pin in there connecting the shaft to the fan blades. Here's what's left of said pin:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5iY-70PT5pY/Ux0zEVwKUCI/AAAAAAAAAZM/hZDqW_kSfaw/s1600/SAM_1506.JPG

Apparently it had been loose or partially broken for awhile because it had worn the groove in the back of the fan hub pretty badly:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QCzEOWi2VfM/Ux0zpjR2k3I/AAAAAAAAAZY/hSXKbFpEx54/s1600/SAM_1509.JPG

This looks like a job for...JB Weld!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IEpnjDuDl8g/Ux00AjO3MdI/AAAAAAAAAZg/yQSNJiyu58M/s1600/SAM_1518.JPG

Conveniently, I had some drill rod the right size on hand so I made a solid pin instead of using a roll pin like the original piece.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7HdI84kZ8pI/Ux00hExZtrI/AAAAAAAAAZo/jVad36ajDgE/s1600/SAM_1519.JPG

Once the JB Weld set, I filed it out so the pin was a snug fit and reassembled everything. Because of the length of the pin and the shape of the ribs, the pin is completely captured when the fan is installed. It's been working great since.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v8O65jGSUA8/Ux01UqpwtbI/AAAAAAAAAZw/19QXVH3aOJo/s1600/SAM_1521.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

Even though it was recently posted, I actually got my shiny billet aluminum Ipsco power steering pulley last November.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UZChWIOLTdI/U0H7hUhT0FI/AAAAAAAAAdY/4av-kTleeVU/s1600/SAM_1779.JPG

I didn't buy it because it was a shiny billet piece, I bought it because the factory plastic one is known to fail and this one will not. It is shiny though. Too shiny. As the only shiny thing in the engine compartment, it would have looked out of place. So, I decided to paint it. The first step is to get rid of the shiny so the paint will stick. The quickest way to do this is with a sandblaster. I taped off the belt grooves, and into the blaster it went.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bV7Azl6vyzU/U0H9-0SsOKI/AAAAAAAAAdk/qbzKygOO4jw/s1600/SAM_1990.JPG

Then came the paint. I got a new type of paint for a non-automotive project, and this seemed like a great test piece. I'm using a product called Duracoat (http://www.duracoat-firearm-finishes.com/). It's a two part epoxy paint that is reported to be incredibly durable, and is solvent and heat resistant to 500°F. It's actually made by Sherwin-Williams as an industrial coating, but it's only sold through them by the gallon. The folks at Duracoat repackage and relabel it in (much) smaller quantities. Though I wouldn't call life in a Viper's engine compartment "rough," it's a good place for a long term test. If the coating does fail, I'll just repaint it with something else. Once again, I taped off the belt groves and laid on the paint. Duracoat is made to be primerless, so I shot it straight onto the pulley and here's how it turned out:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p8JsANulGxo/U0H_4Ie6N3I/AAAAAAAAAdw/tuwDmBhNXzM/s1600/SAM_2080.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

I made another small but incredibly important addition to the Viper. For whatever reason, the power steering caps on the Vipers have a tendency to work loose. When that happens, you get power steering fluid splashing onto your nice and hot exhaust. The end result is often calling your insurance guy and finding a new car. There is a very simple fix for the problem. All you have to do is add a vent line to the cap. The vent prevents the cap from turning so it can't fall off. Like many of the things I've made, there is a commercially available vent kit, but we all know how cheap I am. I took a chunk of 3/8 steel line and some hose that I had laying around and made up a line.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-inMRnmdaeJI/U2ZdZFgzpbI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/tGc7AK7gi1g/s1600/SAM_2156.JPG

It has some twists and turns to clear everything on it's way down to below the frame rail. It's pretty long, and there isn't really anything to attach it to under the car. Since it has to move with the engine, it couldn't be attached to the frame. This left me with a very long and unsupported tube hanging off a plastic cap. With all that weight dangling there, I didn't really like how it was mounted and was concerned about it vibrating and damaging the cap. After sitting on it for a few days, it occurred to me that it's a vent, not a drain tube. It's only real purpose is to keep the cap tight so it doesn't need to be anywhere near as long as I had it. So, I made another one.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HidDLcYdunw/U2ZetQyWsiI/AAAAAAAAAgY/LKgByiAzF7Y/s1600/SAM_2190.JPG

This one extends just past the PS pump and is much more manageable. It's not the prettiest, but once installed, it blends in with the rest of the engine compartment. I may switch to some better looking line in the future, but for now, this was a no cost mod and I can quit worrying about the car bursting into flames from a faulty cap.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oL5RVK5X-Ts/U2ZffXyM4KI/AAAAAAAAAgg/c4EA57D_rwo/s1600/SAM_2157.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

...And that's about it, I'm posted up to real time. Updates are going to be sporadic from here on out since I don't work as fast as I post. There is still a lot of little stuff to take care of and the big job for the summer is the bodywork. I can't really start on it yet, it's not consistently warm enough to assure proper curing of the materials. Thanks for following along.

[V1P3R]

thanks for sharing.

[C.J]

The duracoat finish looks great! Gives the OEM look without the fear of pulley failure (pulleyphobia?).

About that JB Weld...so you filled the worn groves in the fan and then let it fully cure and then file away until you have the channel you wanted? That is pretty cool stuff!

Are you planning on installing the short throw shifter soon or wait for the cold season to do it?

[Bugman Jeff]

I'll be doing the short throw in a few weeks, along with some Woodhouse mounts while I'm at it.

You've got the JB Weld right, fill the groove and file it out to fit. JB Weld has pretty good compression strength and since all the load on the groove is compression, I expect the JB to last the life of the fan. If it does fail again, I can machine a metal insert with the proper groove. At this point, a couple hours of my time is still cheaper than a new fan.

[C.J]

I'll be curious about your opinion of how the STS feels compared with the OEM shifter.

I have to remember JB Weld when something needs fixing in the future. Looks like the ticket -- much better than using duct tape and bailing wire. :)

[Bugman Jeff]

JB Weld is great stuff. It's not a cure all for everything, but there are a whole lot of things it's good for. In fact, the steering wheel on the Porsche I posted was restored with it. It doesn't shrink and won't crack like regular body filler would have. It's solvent resistant and good up to 500°F, so it can be used in harsh environments too. Along with some fiberglass cloth, it's working as a patch on a swiss cheese rusty area on my '55 Plymouth's gas tank.

[C.J]

My neighbor has a '65 GTO and the steering wheel is cracked in places. The plastic shrank and split, so there are these 1/4" gaps along the steering wheel. I never thought about JB Weld for that. Can it be tinted or painted?

[Bugman Jeff]

It can be worked and painted like any other body filler. It actually sands pretty well. Though I've used JB Weld with great success, I actually recommend PC7 Epoxy (http://www.pcepoxy.com/our-products/paste-epoxies/pc-7.php) now for steering wheels. It's essentially just JB Weld in paste form. The JB is runny so you need to back tape the wheel to get the JB to stay where you want it. Because the PC7 is a paste, it stays where you put it and is easier to use on big gaps. Most hardware stores carry it too. There are lots of steering wheel repair how-tos on the net. If you can do bodywork, a steering wheel is no different. Grind the cracks out, fill, sand, and paint.

[C.J]

Bugman, thank you for the advice! I'll get my friend to get motivated with getting his steering wheel done now. :)

[Bugman Jeff]

No problem. I'm always glad when someone can make use of my largely useless store of knowledge :)

[Bugman Jeff]

Just a quick update. Here in WI, we're required to run front plates. I generally run front plates on all my cars, but a front plate always looks terrible on Vipers. I didn't want to drill the bumper either. I know there is a removable bracket available from JonB, but the car just plain looks bad with a plate hanging on the bumper. I wasn't happy with any of the available solutions, so I made my own. I went down to the hardware store, and found some suction cups that fit into the bolt holes, and suction cupped it to the windshield. They work like a charm, keep the plate in place, and are almost invisible. I had to bend the plate slightly to match the windshield and keep it from rattling, but that's not a big deal. It's technically still not legal, but is one of those things where you generally only get called on it if you're doing something else stupid or are a jerk to the guy who pulls you over. I've been running it like this almost since I got the car, and haven't been hassled over it yet.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-olSUZnny_tw/U3OcLf_nalI/AAAAAAAAAjM/MPZaZN7oVas/s1600/SAM_1464.JPG

[C.J]

Clever solution! What's the meaning of your license plate?

We're very fortunate here in NC...no front plate required.

[Bugman Jeff]

No special meaning, it's a standard WI plate with the end letters photoshopped out. While I'm generally not the tin foil hat type, I don't like posting my full plates on the internet. I've never had a car worth stealing before and you never know who's looking. Not that someone couldn't easily figure it out, but just like locking lug nuts are minor deterrent to stolen wheels, not posting my full plate is a minor deterrent to would be thieves. Don't want to make it too easy for them.

[C.J]

Gotcha. Besides, you'd come up with a better solution than a tin foil hat... ;)

NC has an interesting provision here where you can go to the main DMV office in Raleigh and give them a VIN and $10 and you get the title history. Very helpful when looking at used cars at a dealership (nothing like talking with the previous owner), but as a father of a teenage daughter, I'd rather keep the VIN covered up when she's driving her own car.

[Bugman Jeff]

I was getting some occasional misfiring in the Viper I decided that I should probably change the spark plugs as a first step. Here's how the job started:


Me: "I need some spark plugs"
Guy at the counter "Ok what have you got?"
Me "Champion part number RC12LYC"
Guy "OK, I've got lots of those in stock, how many do you need?"
"10"
"Oh. Well, I've got nine of them."

For how big the engine is and how small the car is, getting to the spark plugs is pretty easy. On the pass. side, I highly recommend removing HVAC plenum. It's only four screws and really open up that side of the engine. i won't go into detail as there are many very good how-tos around the internet. After pulling a plug, I'm pretty sure that the plugs in it were the originals. 47,000 miles is well past their service life. The electrodes were very well worn. Here's the old next to the new:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0JScv3D60BY/U3zQLbnfAXI/AAAAAAAAAlU/VZBd95C06G8/s1600/SAM_2262.JPG

Since we're dealing with aluminum heads, the new spark plug threads got some anti-seize on them, and the boots greased with Dielectric grease. Speaking of boots, since they'd been on the plug so long, some of them were pretty stuck to the spark plugs. In pulling one of them off, I managed to break one of the plug wire separators.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BGT_nIK0KlI/U3zRSCLA3OI/AAAAAAAAAlc/qfxUlm73yUo/s1600/SAM_2267.JPG

They're made from a fairly brittle plastic, and 17 years living above exhaust manifolds didn't help the situation any. Fortunately, this type of plastic super glues very well. I know it's a cheap part to replace, but a fixed free one is still cheaper. I can always replace it later if it breaks again.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9C4ZIiUl13I/U3zRyvwI9jI/AAAAAAAAAlk/vlJaIds9fFI/s1600/SAM_2271.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

While I was working in the engine compartment, I took care of a minor, yet annoying thing on the Viper, he throttle cable. There is a stud sticking out of the intake that a cable holder snaps onto. On my car, the plastic snaps are worn out, so the cable doesn't stay attached to the stud. It doesn't affect functionality, but it looks bad under the hood.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0e6HzuZoyaY/U3zUWeq_yvI/AAAAAAAAAls/gwoQX76qlW8/s1600/SAM_2265.JPG

It's a pretty simple fix. I just wrapped the stud with a few winds of plumber's tape. This makes the diameter a bit bigger so the snaps fit tighter. Any tape would work, I went with the plumbers tape because it conforms to the threads better so the snap gets a better "bite." It's good and snug now, and the white tape doesn't show.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v_IZiuy3KoA/U3zU449xd9I/AAAAAAAAAl0/11WcBR64ta0/s1600/SAM_2266.JPG

[C.J]

Laughed out lout at your description of the guy at the parts counter saying he had a lot of them and ended up only having 9.

Does your GTS run better with the new plugs?

Have you checked your air filters too?

[Bugman Jeff]

It does run noticeably better with the new plugs, it's most obvious at idle. I don't know why I didn't think to replace them sooner. I haven't run a full tank through it yet, but I suspect I'll see a slight increase in fuel mileage too.

I checked the air filters shortly after I got the car. They look like new and have definitely been replaced in the recent past.

[Bugman Jeff]

I noticed an interesting thing yesterday. Might be related to my plug change, might be coincidence. I always let the car warm up a minute or two when I start it. I used to get a lot of water spitting out the exhaust when the system was still cold. After changing the plugs, I noticed it doesn't spit water anymore while it's warming up. I don't think it's weather related because it's always been like that regardless of temperature and humidity. I suspect I'm getting a much better burn with the new plugs.

[Bugman Jeff]

For what it's worth, with just the plug change and nothing else, my average fuel economy has gone up 1-1.5 MPG.

[Bugman Jeff]

Cough cough choke, hold my heart and stumble back... The Viper Tax on the Woodhouse engine and transmission mounts is significant. On the plus side, I shouldn't ever have to replace them again. Even though I don't have headers, I'll fab up some better heat shields for them too.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s-h8iqu7wzU/U4X-R5-n4WI/AAAAAAAAAmc/9K4nryVZLDI/s1600/SAM_2273.JPG

[C.J]

First-class stuff there...

[Bugman Jeff]

No doubt they're top notch parts. Though I haven't actually checked my stock mounts yet, given the 47K miles and the amount my shifter moves around under hard acceleration, I'm betting the stockers are in desperate need of replacement.

[C.J]

No doubt, your stockers are shot. Age and heat don't help those mounts much, not to mention the torque they have to put up with.

I'll be interested to see what you fabricate for heat shields. :)

[Bugman Jeff]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lUR7A8lcj7c/U4yqMWdDqlI/AAAAAAAAAms/F-ec2Ez6t90/s1600/SAM_2274.JPG

Yeah...it was time for new engine mounts... The drivers side mount was literally separated into two pieces, and the passengers side mount was torn most of the way through. The engine in the Viper was being held in place primarily by gravity. After drying my tears from the cost of the purchase, I set about installing the new Woodhouse mounts. It's a pretty straight forward job on a Viper, jack up the engine, slide the old mounts out, and new mounts in. I did have a little bit of trouble because the suds on the new mounts are slightly longer than the originals and I couldn't jack the engine up any higher. There are some very good how-to's on the internet, so I won't go through it step by step.

I did need some new heat shields though. There have been reports of people melting their polyurethane mounts, though they are primarily cars running headers. The stock shields don't give full coverage to the mounts. There are a few different options for heat shield material. What a lot of people don't realize is that cardboard has tremendous insulating properties. Because it works so well and is easy to work with, I decided to use some cereal box cardboard for mine. First I cut out the shape of the shield I wanted.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dn8zsQWoEUg/U4ysVSyp3eI/AAAAAAAAAm4/XiGOphbxsDE/s1600/SAM_2277.JPG

Then, I installed them on the motor mounts. I put the printed side out because the glossier surface will help reflect more heat.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Iv2EcDSx68Q/U4yskpUi2PI/AAAAAAAAAnA/WOBHPpHcqBg/s1600/SAM_2279.JPG





No, I'm kidding. I used the cardboard as a template for some stainless steel shields. I made them in a rush, and quite frankly they look like garbage. I made them before taking the car apart using the new mounts as a guide and guessing at the rest. They are over sized and not made very well. While they will get the job done, if you saw them in person you would gouge out your eyes in horror. It's shoddy workmanship like this that people are OK with that makes me cringe when I see it on many "look what I made" type posts around the internet. I'll soon be making a set that fits better and actually looks decent. Here's the new shields next to the originals. Note the utter lack of quality and file it under "How not to make things for your Viper."

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dF2Q-zt_keU/U4yuPG0ZjWI/AAAAAAAAAnM/doYct_f0QPI/s1600/SAM_2275.JPG

As many people have noted on the Viper forums, there is slightly more vibration in the car with the new mounts. It's most noticeable at idle, and isn't enough to bother me. The whole car feels more "solid" driving down the road without the engine flopping all over. It shifts much better too, the shifter used to move back and fourth 1/2" when I got on the gas. Now it stays in place and shifts like it's supposed to, though there is still room for improvement.

[Taximan1]

I'm a little disappointed Bugman.. you actually had to purchase something. (the woodhouse mounts). You mean you don't have the materials (laying around) to make your own engine mounts? LOL (Im kidding)

Great post Bugman. I know exactly what you mean on the "look what I made" posts.

I wouldn't beat yourself up too bad on the shields. Once you have the car buttoned up and The visual on those shields may be much better. Actually a dran good idea(r).. ;_)

PS- looks pretty "moist" under there. Pan gasket next how to?

[C.J]

Bugman, just stamp "China" on the heat shields and you'll feel better about them. ;) If you have access to a sheet metal brake, you should be able to whip up some very crisp looking shields in no time.

Funny comment about the heat shields...I was picturing your Viper going down the road with smoke billowing out the back from the cardboard.

I think those are the worst engine mounts I've ever seen. Looks like one basically melted in place.

[Thawk97]

Wow those mounts are terrible! I also replaced mine recently but went with the stock ones. I actually have more drivetrain movement after the swap but I think it may be because I also went back to factory exhaust which re-introduced the flex pipe so I don't have a solid 3" exhaust helping hold the motor still.

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm a little disappointed Bugman.. you actually had to purchase something. (the woodhouse mounts). You mean you don't have the materials (laying around) to make your own engine mounts? LOL (Im kidding)

PS- looks pretty "moist" under there. Pan gasket next how to?

If I ever do melt or break the Woodhouse mounts(which is unlikely, they're pretty good parts), I'll probably attempt to remake them myself. The metal bits are the hard part, the urethane is just poured into the mold on top of the metal. The tricky part is finding a two part urethane with the right density. Either that, or I'll fab some up from UHMW.

That's not an oily mess, that's rustproofing :) My car does leak a bit though. I'm not exactly sure from where. It's not the pan gasket or front cover. When the front of the car is up on jack stands, I get a static drip from the back of the engine, and above the oil pan. It creeps it's way down the pan until the whole area is covered in a film of oil. It's probably either the rear main seal or rear seal retainer. If, after further investigation, that turns out to be the case, it's going to continue to leak until I need to replace the clutch. Even expensive oil is cheap enough that a quart of oil leaked every oil change isn't worth the trouble to fix unless I'm already there for something else. :)

The worst part of the heat shield quality is that I do have access to a sheet metal brake. The problem is the tabs that get welded get in the way of bending. The order of the bends doesn't matter, the tabs are always in the way. If I can't come up with a good solution, I may just make them in two parts, the main "U", and the cap to go on top.

[bluesrt]

usually the rear main retainer gasket I have found

[Bugman Jeff]

Behold the Mighty Stick of Justice, righting wrongs around the world!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--7l5fpfMd-I/U49VyfJpw7I/AAAAAAAAAnc/ox8ZG6hA_0c/s1600/SAM_2287.JPG

The wrong in this case is the hood on the Viper. Like many Gen I and II Vipers, the hood springs on my car aren't the greatest. They will hold the hood up ok as long as the car is level and there is no wind. Jacking the car up or having the slightest breeze blowing from the front will cause the hood to come crashing down. It definitely can't be left unattended at a car show or cruise night for fear that the hood could slam down on somebody. So, I decided to make a prop rod. Traditional prop rods going from the cowl to the hood look bad. It's a Viper, no matter how fancy the prop rod is, it always looks out of place. Mine is much less obtrusive. It's made from a 1 1/4" wood dowel, and is 24" end to end. The top side is notched, the bottom is ground at a slight angle, and it was primed/sanded/painted so that you really can't tell it's wood. The top end hooks into the hood hinge like so:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I5yymZJ2YD8/U49Xye2TGFI/AAAAAAAAAno/DKN48GmY0yY/s1600/SAM_2288.JPG

The bottom end wedges into a conveniently bare spot of the frame seemingly left open for just such a devise here:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-09-37DA6pH4/U49YAgdl0GI/AAAAAAAAAnw/C_ejyFlzTJY/s1600/SAM_2290.JPG

When it's installed, it blends in with the rest of the engine compartment and is virtually invisible to "regular" people. At the last cruise night I went to, I asked everyone who looked at the car if they noticed it, and the universal answer was "No."

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0POeNdZ9obM/U49YjBIeZwI/AAAAAAAAAn4/H0POfv8VB4E/s1600/SAM_2297.JPG

It holds the hood rock solid and is wedged in such a manner that it can not come out on it's own. The only drawback is that you need to remember to take it out before trying to close the hood. I've found that it's not much of an issue because the hood doesn't budge with it there. As soon as you touch the hood and it doesn't move, you remember that the Mighty Stick of Justice is in place. It stores conveniently behind the seat when not in use.

Also, yes, I'm aware of how dirty my engine compartment is...
:)

[C.J]

Very clever prop rod! I may have to make one too. Thanks for providing the dimensions of the dowel.

Your engine bay doesn't look bad from a distance...especially with the oversized hose clamps replaced with those T-clamps.

[Bugman Jeff]

The wood is great. Aside from being cheap and easy to work with, it's very light, and because it's softer than everything it sits against, it will take the hit instead of scratching the areas where it makes contact.

[Bugman Jeff]

Well fudge. In my struggle to get my PS pulley off, I somehow managed to shove the pump shaft backwards into the pump, popping off what ever seal there was on the back side and causing it to leak. And yes, I was using proper pullers. At least rebuilt pumps are cheap. Sigh...

[Bugman Jeff]

I hate drilling holes. Absolutely hate it. Especially when it involves hand drills. If I never had to drill another hole in my life, I could die happy. Here's reason 1,847. If you remember a while back, I bought an aftermarket shifter for the Viper. I finally had time to install it. Step one after removing the console is to drill out the rivets holding the inner shift boot in. Chrysler, much to my chagrin, used steel rivets. In the process of drilling them out, the bit slipped, hit the rubber boot, and this happened:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gh6UutCLNKY/U71g2hiy5mI/AAAAAAAAApo/72FbqAemcKk/s1600/SAM_2300.JPG

That was how the project started. Fortunately, being rubber, it super glues back together very well. The white haze you see around the seam is from the kicker I used to make the glue set up faster. It looks terrible, but it works and fortunately you can't see it with the car assembled.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KBNPuBPguiU/U71hTQ95eSI/AAAAAAAAApw/rN3Wk12OBW8/s1600/SAM_2315.JPG

With the boot out of the way, we have access to the shifter. Here's the hole we have to work with:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QCraZA384pY/U71hm2Kf0sI/AAAAAAAAAp4/wtpWP6l9U44/s1600/SAM_2304.JPG

The instructions say to locate and drill some holes in the console for bolt access. I didn't want to drill any holes in my perfectly good car. It turns out that you can get to all the bolts for removal and installation without drilling holes or lowering the trans, but it takes a stubby wrench, a 1/4" drive u-joint with socket, and nimble fingers. Since I had to put a trans mount in anyway, I just lowered the trans. It makes things MUCH easier. Here's the new Ipsco STS shifter next to the original. It's MUCH higher quality:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G3Q2R0C_hMw/U71iRQuBk2I/AAAAAAAAAqA/elCerjP8ZaE/s1600/SAM_2308.JPG

Like I said, I wanted to swap the trans mount to the new Woodhouse urethane mount while I was at it. Here's the new mount next to the old:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-06LZX3Bx-5M/U71ivEfs8HI/AAAAAAAAAqI/mZ-6izoRcxM/s1600/SAM_2311.JPG

Once the belly pan is off, it's a pretty simple swap. Just jack up the trans, undo some bolts, and swap the mount. Since the shifter was the primary job, with the trans mount removed, I lowered the trans to give myself more room to work, then installed the new mount:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Db3HMD5IH4/U71jjLdTffI/AAAAAAAAAqU/hrlfA6w0C3I/s1600/SAM_2313.JPG

Here's our new shifter installed and ready for a test drive:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QSa35CP61YI/U71jv5um82I/AAAAAAAAAqc/fANk6FTJo-0/s1600/SAM_2318.JPG

The car shifts MUCH cleaner with the new shifter. It's nearly impossible to do the accidental 3-2 instead of 3-4 shift. Downshifting is greatly improved too. The throw is shorter than stock even with the tall stock shift knob. It is a bit stiffer than stock, but the more precise shifts are worth it. Between the Woodhouse mounts and STS shifter, the car shifts better than ever. It's a pretty straight forward install, and the provided instructions are very well written. Honestly, the hardest part was drilling out the shift boot rivets, and if you don't have a hate-hate relationship with drill bits like I do it's not a big deal.

[Solid Red 98]

Hey Bugman, love this thread! Work faster so I can see more, more, more.... A simple tip on drilling metal parts: 1. Always use a sharp punch and make a divot for the drill bit to start in. 2. Spring for the sharpest hardest quality bit you can get. 3. Use cutting oil. Those three things make drilling almost a pleasure...Not much drilling to do on a Viper, but if/when you ever snap a bolt, this works wonders; drill bits are our friends... Just sayin... ;-)

[C.J]

Bugman, you just got me motivated to get my STS installed. Steel rivets...that's a surprise. I have new mounts to install as well, so time to get all that stuff done. How well do you think that crazy glue will hold up on the inner shift boot?

[Bugman Jeff]

I think the super glue will work OK, but I'm going to pull it apart for a better repair anyway. Rubber super glues very well, and the glue I used is slightly flexible, but still dries pretty hard so I suspect it has or will crack. It recently occurred to me that a bicycle inner tube patch kit and a chunk of inner tube will probably do a better job, so that's what I'm going to use when I take it apart again.


A simple tip on drilling metal parts...
The worst part of this whole thing is that I'm a machinist by trade, and drill holes for a living(partly anyway). Give me a mill or drill press, and we're good. Give me a hand drill, and I'm likely to accidentally drill through the mail box while trying to drill a hole in the workshop :smilielol:

[Sybil TF]

The worst part of this whole thing is that I'm a machinist by trade, and drill holes for a living(partly anyway). Give me a mill or drill press, and we're good. Give me a hand drill, and I'm likely to accidentally drill through the mail box while trying to drill a hole in the workshop :smilielol:LOL! Now that is funny!!

[Troublemaker]

I think the super glue will work OK, but I'm going to pull it apart for a better repair anyway. Rubber super glues very well, and the glue I used is slightly flexible, but still dries pretty hard so I suspect it has or will crack. It recently occurred to me that a bicycle inner tube patch kit and a chunk of inner tube will probably do a better job, so that's what I'm going to use when I take it apart again.


The worst part of this whole thing is that I'm a machinist by trade, and drill holes for a living(partly anyway). Give me a mill or drill press, and we're good. Give me a hand drill, and I'm likely to accidentally drill through the mail box while trying to drill a hole in the workshop :smilielol:

A still hand and a good center punch are good tricks. You may find a use for the mailbox hole, so there is always a silver lining. Try doing it up in the air while the wind is tossing you around, it makes work on the ground seem easy, great training.

[Luisv]

i had seen a few posts before but i just went through the whole thread.... very impressive what you've done.

keep it up... you'll end up with a gem!

[Bugman Jeff]

So, after owning the car for a bit over a year, I just last night discovered that the headlight switch lights up... I drive with the headlights on a lot and the steering wheel is right in the way, I never noticed the switch before :smilielol:

[V1P3R]

That is awesome. Had one of those moments myself. When I picked up my Viper, we drove it home from Philly to home...about 1300 miles. It wasn't till a week or two later that I remembered that there is recline and lumbar! Yea, the wife wasn't to happy with me for remembering that one until after the first drive across 5 states!

[Bugman Jeff]

Learn from my fail #2. The last "replace it because it's going to fail eventually" on the Viper is in the power steering system. The stock plastic pulley has a tendency to disintegrate, and the pump bracket is known to crack. Either will ruin your day pretty quick. When I bought my shifter from Ipsco, I also bought some upgraded billet aluminum parts to prevent both of these problems. I painted the pulley a few posts back, and the bracket has been resting happily in the box until now.

First things first, I had to get the stock pulley off the pump. I didn't want to mess with power steering fluid all over the place, so I decided to leave the pump in the car. Like most modern cars, the pulley is just pressed onto the shaft of the pump. With the pump unbolted and the airbox off, you can get a puller on the pulley. The first one I used is one that I had already. It hooks into the groove on the pulley, and grabs around 60% of the way around the groove. I clamped a vice grips over it to keep the jaws tight in the groove.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ISxPLwDKb94/U80x17WVezI/AAAAAAAAAq0/znh_37Zk-j0/s1600/SAM_2325.JPG

No dice with that one. The pulley didn't budge. Rather than continuing with the exercise in futility, I went to the local Advance Auto Parts and borrowed one of their loaner tools. This one was the full circle style puller that grabs the pulley groove all the way around to spread the load over the whole surface.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4_VFK_Ylrr0/U80x2XQn6iI/AAAAAAAAArk/Gtw7izVaLHs/s1600/SAM_2327.JPG

I started tightening the puller, and heard a "Pop" which usually means that the pulley came loose and started pulling off. Nope.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3KYZpYRbIc8/U80x234f9uI/AAAAAAAAArM/sjUhk87PNjY/s1600/SAM_2328.JPG

Yeah, the puller actually broke the groove on the pulley. The Pop wasn't the pulley sliding, it was the groove breaking. Sigh... With the groove broken, there was nothing for the puller to grab onto anymore. So I had to take the pump off the car for a "last resort" pulley removal. It starts by removing the plastic portion of the pulley from the steel hub. A hammer and chisel are the tools of choice here.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M1Xh5xJq6N0/U80x3eQhYtI/AAAAAAAAArU/uGIKwrRgebI/s1600/SAM_2332.JPG

With the hub bare, there are once again grooves you can hook a puller into. This time I used the vice to keep the jaws clamped together and prevent slipping.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eZqSZr7I9J4/U80x4TgFqvI/AAAAAAAAArc/I3xXRsFhLxM/s1600/SAM_2334.JPG

That didn't work either. This thing was seriously stuck. I had one more trick up my sleeve, and that was to cut the hub off. This was an absolute last resort because you risk damaging the pump shaft. Using a Dremel with a cut off wheel, what you have to do is start grinding through the hub. You want to grind the whole thing evenly, and NOT cut down into the shaft. When you get it ground down far enough, the hub will split on it's own because of the press fit tension it's under.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ht7O-AoXyz8/U80x41Tx0jI/AAAAAAAAArs/mAcbaLO3Gr0/s1600/SAM_2336.JPG

After it's split like that, it slides off pretty easily. It was after this point when installing the new pulley hub that I realized I'd really effed up. In my efforts to remove the pulley, I'd actually broken my pump. Somehow, while trying to pull the pulley off, I managed to push the shaft into the pump housing, and I actually cracked the rear cover of the housing. Here's the area that broke(pic stolen from the internet).

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1Jw_9AdMPc/U80x1argT9I/AAAAAAAAAq4/Id_5iE-A_KM/s1600/IMG_3940.JPG

Looking back, it happened while the pump was still on the car, and NOT when I was hammering the pulley off. So, I needed a new pump. Fortunately, this is a very common PS pump. Nearly all manufacturers have used it in one form or another. The Viper shares it with Jeeps, so a rebuilt pump from Napa was only $60, no Viper tax on this one. The new pump didn't come with a reservoir(they generally don't), so I had to transfer mine over. It's held onto the pump body with two clippy things.They're pretty easy to get off. just hook a screwdriver into the lock tab, pry up slightly, and lightly tap it off. You can also see in this pic the broken rear cover.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWR7ZIwQGQA/U80x5cXx_BI/AAAAAAAAAr0/i_gVuUMBVRs/s1600/SAM_2343.JPG

With the pump and pulley out of the way, the other piece of the puzzle is the bracket. The new Ipsco billet bracket is significantly beefier than the original. Seeing the two together, it's pretty clear why the original ones can crack.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01Qc3O1-3FQ/U80x1_tUCSI/AAAAAAAAAq8/wlUJ6XXM9Dw/s1600/SAM_2322.JPG

Installing the bracket is so straight forward that Ipsco barely covers it in their otherwise very well written pulley/bracket instructions. Take three bolts off, swap bracket, put three bolts back on. You don't even need to remove the pump from the car to do it. Here's where it sits on the engine.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-df8PMVXQK1g/U80x6II1LuI/AAAAAAAAAr8/QbhGPpogLo4/s1600/SAM_2346.JPG

And finally, everything is back together. The bracket is down low, and with my pulley painted black, everything still looks factory until you notice that the pulley is bolted on instead of pressed on.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zP5O3HCn2Kk/U80x6llvaOI/AAAAAAAAAsA/E362NsVAPdY/s1600/SAM_2348.JPG

While I was at it, I flushed my PS fluid too. It's easy to get most of it changed. Suck the fluid out of the reservoir with a turkey baster, fill with fresh fluid, run car for 30 seconds, repeat as necessary until the fluid is is running clean. You won't get absolutely all the old fluid out this way, but you'll get enough and it's far easier and less messy than the "pull off the return hose and run it into a bucket" method.

[My98RT10]

Again, nice write-up! I went through this a few months ago, fortunately with more luck than you (sorry). I my case, the pulley came off with the second type of puller you were using. No damage to the pump either. I did the whole thing with the pump off the engine.

[Bugman Jeff]

A coworker was sent to our Malaysia facility for three weeks, and I'm kind of a jerk sometimes so...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kxPVkTZEGBc/U9aDF4fpPuI/AAAAAAAAAsM/ljKYbRyGiGo/s1600/SAM_0009.JPG

Also, I discovered a new unit of measurement. Turns out Vipers have a 70 Flamingo trunk.

[ACRucrazy]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kxPVkTZEGBc/U9aDF4fpPuI/AAAAAAAAAsM/ljKYbRyGiGo/s1600/SAM_0009.JPG

Also, I discovered a new unit of measurement. Turns out Vipers have a 70 Flamingo trunk.


Amazing!

[C.J]

Great write up on the P/S pulley and bracket swap. The last p/s pulley swap I did with a buddy's 1999 RT/10 had the same exact thing happen when pulling the old pulley...it broke the metal hub. Ended up getting a rebuilt pump with a lifetime warranty for about $60, and that simplified life.

Very clever idea about grinding the metal hub and letting the tension break it!

[DaveW]

A coworker was sent to our Malaysia facility for three weeks, and I'm kind of a jerk sometimes so...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kxPVkTZEGBc/U9aDF4fpPuI/AAAAAAAAAsM/ljKYbRyGiGo/s1600/SAM_0009.JPG

Also, I discovered a new unit of measurement. Turns out Vipers have a 70 Flamingo trunk.

Ya wanna sell some? I gotta replace 6 someone stole from my front yard last week. :o

[Bugman Jeff]

Ya wanna sell some? I gotta replace 6 someone stole from my front yard last week. :o

Home Depot sells them cheaper than I could ship them, and if you order enough, shipping is free :)

[lord_vader]

Great write up. I really love all of the tips you've provided. The cracked center console is a gem as I need to perform the same repair. Car looks amazing. Looking forward to future updates.

[Bugman Jeff]

If you recall, I replaced the power steering pump on the Viper some time back. The new pump started making a bit of noise the other day, and, not being the type to let things go too long, I checked it out. Turns out, I was low on fluid. Here's why:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ytMGW2otpPk/VD6QUQVkS0I/AAAAAAAAAzA/_7JpdrRl3Ps/s1600/SAM_0342.JPG

That's the power steering return line to the reservoir. In the past few months, it's cracked and split. Undoubtedly it was initially damaged when I removed it to replace the pump, I just didn't notice, and it got worse from there. It didn't help that it's 17 years old. This particular line goes from the PS cooler to the reservoir and is so easy to replace, I didn't bother taking more pictures. Since it's a return hose, it's not one of the special crimped high pressure lines. Just take the airbox out, suck the fluid out of the reservoir with a turkey baster, undo the quick clamps, remove and replace. Everything is easily accessible once the airbox is out of the way.

Actually getting new hose was a bit interesting. It says right on it that it's 11/32" PS return hose. So I went to Advance Auto to get some more. Turns out Advance doesn't sell PS return hose in bulk, they sell it in individually bagged 1' and 2' sections. Because of this, even though I told them what size I needed, they actually had to look it up on the computer. Sigh...

[98intrigue]

Any updates, Jeff? I was enjoying your DIY thread.

[Bugman Jeff]

I haven't really had it out much this year yet, it's still often in the 30's-40's at night so I haven't driven it to work yet. The big project this summer is going to be bodywork and paint. It hasn't stayed warm enough to assure proper curing yet though. I also need tires before driving too much too.

[98intrigue]

It's already hit 90 here...

[ACRSNK]

Great thread!

[LittleCobra]

I remember this topic from when it started, looking forward to updates also.

[SYDWNDR]

This is my new favorite thread! I love seeing people do upgrades and fixes.

Also, this Viper is like a beaten and starved dog that found an new owner that respects them and brings them back to life. This Viper could have easily ended up being a parts car, stripped and gone forever.

[Vprbite]

Impressive! Great to see this car brought back from the dead and may I say your fabricating skills are impressive. Good job. As for JB Weld. I hope the guy that invented that stuff got the frickin Nobel prize because I have scene that stuff do things that no substance should. And it's innocuous untill combined. It should be in every backcountry kit.

Nice work with everything!!!

[Bugman Jeff]

It's been a long time since I've posted an update, and it's been a busy few weeks for the Dinged Up Dodge. It started with the whole cam sensor thing (http://driveviper.com/forums/threads/9806-A-35-Gen-II-III-cam-sensor-alternative%28and-maybe-Gen-Is-too%29) where I took apart a perfectly good running car for no other reason than to test a theory. While playing around with the cam sensor, I discovered something much more potentially disastrous than a cam sensor that might some day go bad. I had an intake leak.

Intake leaks are actually pretty easy to check for. First, I heard some hissing from the middle of the intake in addition to the throttle body hiss. Then, I sprayed the seam between the intake and the heads with some brake cleaner. If the engine changes speed when you spray, it's because the brake cleaner is getting sucked into that cylinder. Anything aerosol will work, the engine will either speed up or slow down, depending on how flammable your spray is. In my case, the center cylinder on the driver's side was leaking. There was a very definite RPM change when spraying around that port. I don't know how long it had been leaking, but it could have lead to a catastrophic failure if it wasn't addressed.

As it turns out, for a huge engine in a small car, the intake comes off surprisingly easy. The hardest part was actually lifting the intake off the car by myself. It's not heavy, but it's awkward because you don't have a fender to lean over like you would a regular car. Here's everything that you need to take off except for the cowl(which comes off with just four screws after the wipers are removed). The whole intake/injector wiring subassembly just unplugs from the main harness, so even the wiring can stay put.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1h17SqRzUNQ/Vc-DhQAsu0I/AAAAAAAABS4/cMPH_afQPkM/s1600/SAM_1513.JPG

As soon as I lifted the intake off, I spotted the problem. The original intake gaskets were cracked. They didn't tear when I took the intake off, they were already broken. You can see a chunk of gasket stuck to the center port, the rest of that bank stayed on the block.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jz3kdeLezaU/Vc-DCSdoZ4I/AAAAAAAABSo/Ef3eVk9wb_0/s1600/SAM_1509.JPG

Here's what the port on the head looked like with the rest of the gasket removed. You can see the carbon tracks going across it.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K_-OSIc_aQs/Vc-C1VnNyTI/AAAAAAAABSg/bmz85e1SwwM/s1600/SAM_1496.JPG

The thing is though, it wasn't just on the center cylinder. Most of the cylinders had similar tracks. The center cylinder on the driver's side was the only one actively leaking, but any of them could have started leaking at any time.

Thankfully, modern gaskets are generally non-stick, so other than the carbon I didn't have to do much gasket surface scraping to get everything cleaned up. Also note the rags stuffed in the ports. It's important to keep crud from falling into the engine. You don't want to have to pull a head because you accidentally dropped a bolt.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Jgu5fBlxUoM/Vc-DE6AGK-I/AAAAAAAABSw/LeV4Gc3a7uI/s1600/SAM_1502.JPG

I went with Cometic gaskets instead of factory gaskets. They are supposed to be the best, and they're actually pretty cheap. They also are made to go on dry, no silicone like the good old days. After getting everything bolted back together and torquing the million intake bolts in sequence, it fired right up. A quick check around the ports with more brake cleaner showed no more leaks, and life is good.

[My98RT10]

Thanks Jeff for posting! Now I know that replacing intake gasket is not the trickiest job and I am prepared. ..��

[Sybil TF]

Can you post a pic of the Cometic gasket? Just wondering why they are better. I have the factory gaskets that I ordered a while back for a future t-stat swap and heard Dave mention these as well. Also, where did you order them?

[Bugman Jeff]

Sorry, I didn't get any pics of the gaskets themselves. They look about the same as the factory ones, but without the blue seal ring. They feel much slicker though, like the whole thing is non-stick. According to the product description they're an Aramid fiber(ie Kevlar), so they shouldn't get brittle and crack like the originals did(and for what it's work, my car only has 54,000 miles on it). I got them through Amazon, they had the best price plus shipping(which is free on orders over $35). Cometic C5827-039 (http://www.amazon.com/Cometic-C5827-039-Intake-Gasket-Set/dp/B005JUWIMY/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1439742512&sr=1-1&keywords=Cometic+C5827-039)



Thanks Jeff for posting! Now I know that replacing intake gasket is not the trickiest job and I am prepared. ..��
As far as intakes go, it was really pretty easy. Aside from actually lifting the intake off and on by myself, the hardest part was disconnecting the wiring. The two plugs main are under the coil packs on the back of the engine. They are the kind with the lock pins you need to slide out before you can unclip them, and you can't really see them to know what you're doing. A mirror on a stick is a big help. You also need a fuel line disconnect tool for the fuel quick connect fitting, but the cheap $5 plastic one from any parts store works just fine.

[Bugman Jeff]

It's time to start down the long and itchy road... I've been putting this off for two and a half years. I have to fix the body on the Viper. It's not a huge task, but a big one. The fiberglass bodywork is cracked in several places, some of them quite severely. An attempt had been made by the previous owner to fix the hood, but(unsurprisingly), the repairs cracked. That's not unexpected, I assumed that I'd have to grind out and redo that work anyway. The body damage is what brought the car's price down to "justifiably affordable," and is the only reason I'm here posting at all. To pay a shop to do the work would likely be $10K plus. Conveniently, I used to build kit cars for a living, so I know a thing or two about working with fiberglass.

The plan is to get the primary bodywork done this year, then paint it next summer. I have a good reason for this. Bodywork of any type will shrink a bit, fiberglass especially so. While fiberglass sets up hard in a few hours, it's not truly fully cured for several months after it's been layed up. By waiting to paint it, the fresh bodywork will have several months to fully cure and shrink as much as it's likely going to. To prepare for bodywork, I haven't waxed the car all year, and I washed it repeatedly with Dawn dish soap. This should have left the surface free of wax buildup that would cause problems down the road. The repair area also gets wiped down with Wax and Grease remover.

I decided to start with the easiest repair since it didn't involve actually taking anything off the car. The passenger side quarter panel had a crack in the forward edge. It doesn't really look like much, just some chipped paint and a hint of a crack:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AnM_57KpkNE/VdNfTNeo9pI/AAAAAAAABTM/O_kcJPBakoY/s1600/SAM_1594.JPG

But, it's more damaged than it appears. Using just a pick and a knife, I broke out all the loose 'glass surrounding the damage. This is just the stuff that was already broken loose from the underlying fiberglass. You can see how much was actually damaged.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f8CsGtpTieM/VdNfTnMTKmI/AAAAAAAABTg/CVcY5HZ17i8/s1600/SAM_1595.JPG

Up next is the best(or worst) part, taking a grinder to one of the best sports cars America's ever produced. To repair cracked fiberglass, you MUST grind out the whole crack. You can't just bridge across it with more fiberglass. If you do not completely grind the crack away, it WILL show up again down the road. I used my trusty Harbor Freight 7" grinder with a 24 grit disk. It's an astonishingly good grinder for what it cost, and has served me very well over the years.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-llKeT6_7Pt4/VdNfTaIEEmI/AAAAAAAABTc/Qh4ee7Z7Jsw/s1600/SAM_1596.JPG

You want to grind the crack completely out, and grind back the surrounding area where you'll be laying on new 'glass. With a grinder this big and a disk this aggressive, you've got to be careful not to grind too far.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cy67XzG4z00/VdNfUaimxSI/AAAAAAAABTo/wgmLjUacr7A/s1600/SAM_1599.JPG

Then we have to lay in some new fiberglass. Body filler alone, even fiberglass reinforced filler, wouldn't be strong enough and would likely crack again at some point. We also need to re-bond the fibers that have broken loose but aren't broken off, and bondo alone won't do that. Additionally, the Viper's body panels are made from SMC. It's still fiberglass, but a slightly different kind than you're used to. Because of this, you can't use standard fiberglass resin because it won't stick well. According to Evercoat, it's because of the mold release built into the SMC's resin. You either need to use epoxy resin, or an SMC specific polyester resin. I'm using Evercoat's SMC Fibreglass Resin. You also want to use fiberglass mat, not the woven cloth. The reason is that if/when it does shrink, you won't really notice the random pattern of the mat. If you use cloth and it shrinks, the square weave showing through will be very obvious. I put on a few layers of 'glass, adding more to build up the corner that was ground away. The tape comes in handy here, it'll help keep you from getting resin on things you don't want resined.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZvIjspXAf3w/VdNfVAMYZ-I/AAAAAAAABTw/3duRBTz_2lI/s1600/SAM_1602.JPG

The repair goes all the way to the unground paint. Normally you wouldn't want to put resin over shiny paint because the resin won't stick well to it, but it doesn't matter in this case because that whole area will be ground back past that point anyway.

Up next, we get to use one of my all time favorite bodyworking products. My most favorite is SEM Color Coat plastic/vinyl/fabric paint. My second most favorite is this stuff, Duratec primer surfacer:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3aKliTljEw0/VdNfXrm5lZI/AAAAAAAABUY/OJC2ru7LR0M/s1600/SAM_1620.JPG

It's made specifically for fiberglass, and is essentially a sprayable catalyzed gelcoat(it also works fantastic on metal too). It's basically fiberglass resin with a lot of solid binders in it, and it catalyses with fiberglass hadener. Unlike most primer surfacers, it has virtually zero shrink. You can basically put it on as thick as you want, and it will work just fine. Duratec even says a build of .040" is acceptable. At $100/gallon, it's comparatively cheap too. Because it's made specifically for fiberglass, it will help seal the fresh 'glass better than most products will. Using my trusty grinder, I ground down the new 'glass until it was below my final surface height, then covered it with Duratec. I didn't spray it on for this part. Because it doesn't shrink, and most of it will get sanded off anyway, I put it on with a brush. Seriously. It works just fine that way and is much easier to deal with(less masking, less cleanup, etc).

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YkNEh7S1cPs/VdNfVkCeOfI/AAAAAAAABT8/t0xln_ssb80/s1600/SAM_1604.JPG

One of the reasons I love Duratec is that it sands super easy and doesn't clog the paper. After knocking down the high spots in the Duratec with 80 grit paper, it was on to bondo. Like kleenex and sawzall, bondo, even though a brand name, has become the generic term for body filler. Bondo brand bondo is actually one of the worst fillers on the market. Granted, it's better than it used to be, but it's still not great. It sands like a rock, it absorbs moisture like a sponge, and it cracks easier than most other fillers. For just a few more bucks a gallon, you can get much better products. I'm using Evercoat Rage Gold. It goes on smooth, and it sands like nothing. I roughed it in with 80 grit, then finished with 220. The Rage Gold sands well enough that I didn't need any intermediate grits.

When doing bodywork, you always want to use the longest sanding block possible. Too short of a block can leave waves, and avoid hand sanding at all costs because you'll leave waves and finger grooves. I used primary an 8" sanding block for this small area. If you're new to bodywork, do not use power tools. Making panels flat with a hand block takes skill and practice. Making panels flat with power tools is nearly impossible. It's far too easy to sand too much off with power sanders, and you're likely to get waves and ripples that you won't be able to feel, but will see in the final paint. You can see in the pic that our repair area is spreading too. The repair needs to be feathered out into the non-damaged area to get a perfect blend.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eA7wB52ZvGo/VdNfV71Cx0I/AAAAAAAABUA/BXQr0oqYnwE/s1600/SAM_1607.JPG

After two coats of bondo, I was satisfied with the repair. Body filler will absorb moisture(which is why you should never wet sand it). It's less of an issue on fiberglass because the underlying panel can't rust, but it's still an issue. Many 2K primer surfacers will absorb moisture too. Since we don't want that happening, and the car won't be painted until next year, we once again turn to our good friend Duratec. It's completely waterproof, and will seal the bodywork. This time though, I did spray it. You'll notice I sprayed out past the repair and over shiny paint. Normally, you wouldn't want to do this, because the primer won't stick well to the shiny paint. But, this isn't a usual case. When I do the final bodywork just before paint, it will be block sanded down closer to the repair area, and the whole panel will be primered. The Duratec now is primarily for protection from the elements. You can see I did much more making this time too. My HVLP guns don't have that much overspray, but it's easier to do a little extra masking than clean off overspray.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_1KadtTanIQ/VdNfWrZIG1I/AAAAAAAABUI/UoQQXzS4jRE/s1600/SAM_1611.JPG

Another thing with Duratec, since it's catalyzed like fiberglass resin, you MUST IMMEDIATELY CLEAN YOUR PAINT GUN. When properly mixed, Duratec sets up in 20 minutes or so. Once it's set, it's set. Unlike standard 2K paints and primers, there is nothing that will dissolve it. If it sets in your paint gun, you'll be buying a new paint gun.

With the Duratec set, I could unmask everything. I'm left with a repair that's 95% finished, and completely weatherproof so I can still drive my car. It took me a weekend of not working very hard to do this repair. The hood and left quarter are next, they'll be much more involved...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mTu9JCHputg/VdNfXHpd2TI/AAAAAAAABUQ/N905zyHAJp0/s1600/SAM_1618.JPG

[gage]

Fantastic. As always I love checking up on this thread! :)

[DSA_RYan]

one note with the Brake Clean and using it to find a vacuum leak, i had a friend doing that on a ranger engine, he had a bad spark plug wire, and he lost his eye brows, some hair, and spent a couple days in and out of the hospital for eye issues. a cracked spark plug wire ignited the brake clean.

[Bugman Jeff]

one note with the Brake Clean and using it to find a vacuum leak, i had a friend doing that on a ranger engine, he had a bad spark plug wire, and he lost his eye brows, some hair, and spent a couple days in and out of the hospital for eye issues. a cracked spark plug wire ignited the brake clean.
Yikes! Less flammable sprays can be used too. I've used WD-40 a time or two, and many parts stores carry non-flammable brake cleaner. Even water in a squirt bottle will work if nothing else is handy.

[640bhpV10]

This is an amazing thread, so glad to see you resurrecting this beautiful beast!

The techniques area really interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Good luck!

-Nick

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm still not entirely sure how I want to tackle the Viper's cracked quarter panel yet, so the next stop on the Itchy Road is the hood. The hood on this car is a case study on how not to fix fiberglass. Since I have so much experience with fiberglass, I knew what I had to work with when I first saw the car. But, a lot of it might have gone unnoticed to the average car person. To the untrained eye, it didn't look too bad, just a few cracks and some shoddy bodywork. A little cracking around one of the headlights:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rMZjcbXrpo8/VeJ8xxJlT9I/AAAAAAAABU4/h_PgeuDDqhQ/s1600/SAM_1621.JPG

Some tiny cracks around the scoop:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w6gvLwFIMr0/VeJ8yXuj-MI/AAAAAAAABVI/6yJch275wRg/s1600/SAM_1636.JPG

And this crack right here. This crack is very telling, and hints at the real extent of the damage. The important key here is that this crack appeared in an already repaired portion of the hood. It was not there when I got the car, but has appeared in the two years I've been driving it. This is a huge giveaway that it was not repaired properly the first time. I automatically assumed when I got the car that I would have to redo all the work that had been previously done. This crack confirms it.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2TT9Ahm0WWg/VeJ8wznj--I/AAAAAAAABUw/XgFpmCAfRHE/s1600/SAM_1622.JPG

If you remember way back in the beginning of the thread, I painted over the striped portion of the primer spot with Plasti-Dip. It was a surprisingly effective way to hide the primer. With the stripes unbroken, the casual passer by didn't notice the primer. As I explained a bit then, aside from the zero prep work Plasti-Dip requires, one of the main reasons I used Plasti-Dip was it's easy removability. When you decide you don't want it there anymore, you literally just peel it off:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sC7T6iDqeZs/VeJ8xcDR6mI/AAAAAAAABU8/gYprguwiE_4/s1600/SAM_1632.JPG

Under the Plasti-Dip, you can see more of the previous repair. Like the crack on the front edge, the sink marks weren't there when I got the car. Remember last post when I said standard primer surfacer shrinks? Here's visible proof. Standard two part urethane primer surfacers are still 25%-50% solvent, and it can take months for all the solvent to finally evaporate and for the primer stop shrinking. The thicker you put it on, the more it shrinks (which is why I love the virtually shrinkless Duratec). If you were to rush into paint, you'd now have these giant sink marks in your nice shiny paint.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RzO8bL9XURc/VeJ8yGpby5I/AAAAAAAABVM/uG7AEO3wIQY/s1600/SAM_1633.JPG

That pretty much covers the top of the hood. The bottom side is also cracked. Even if I didn't have the visible cracks on the bottom of the hood, the crack appearing on the front edge tells me there's structural damage to it that needs to be fixed. So, off the hood had to come. It's not overly heavy, just big and awkward. It was ridiculously hard not to drive the car around town like this...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FoTuuFBAwzk/VeJ8zTNAxwI/AAAAAAAABVc/xB9d1YnHb7o/s1600/SAM_1637.JPG

Like I said, the bottom of the hood is cracked. But, it's not just cracked, it's cracked. I pulled the hood liner off, and it's a good thing I did. The bottom of the hood is covered in cracks, many of them in the previously "repaired" areas, and many of them hiding under the hood liner.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dTzxy3lmsuE/VeJ8z3rTs_I/AAAAAAAABVk/FMRs6bIY7k0/s1600/SAM_1638.JPG

One of the previously "repaired" areas, cracked once again.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LBhnO95FblA/VeJ80NETxVI/AAAAAAAABVo/ZhFeeYn4ZR4/s1600/SAM_1640.JPG

Just above where the hood hinge bolts on. Both sides are cracked in this area.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KFMG1jYfZTM/VeJ80xt98DI/AAAAAAAABVw/d8-wrHdWsOA/s1600/SAM_1642.JPG

The cracks in the end of this groove are directly under where the top side of the hood cracks from improper closing. I can't help but wonder if the groove creates a weak point that makes the hood flex more there and crack.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a8S__94v_Lk/VeJ82HYbblI/AAAAAAAABWE/FOsLiSn8_Y4/s1600/SAM_1644.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Twuor_JeISg/VeJ81xQJIJI/AAAAAAAABV8/UsFUzRCLKpE/s1600/SAM_1645.JPG

Another one of the previously "repaired" areas, with new cracks.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MTu436Ec7jk/VeJ82XeDlkI/AAAAAAAABWI/aPsjvkhl6Ec/s1600/SAM_1646.JPG

You can just see a horizontal crack just below the hood latch hook in a "repaired" area.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HynUz-8HlKw/VeJ83AEb27I/AAAAAAAABWU/IT24rDfMlZw/s1600/SAM_1651.JPG

And this one way up here towards the top of the hood, for no apparent reason...
It's no where near any of the other damage on the hood. If anyone has any theories as to why this crack appeared, I'd like to hear them.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yEK-F4rgUy0/VeJ83v0StxI/AAAAAAAABWc/LyjXKCod-h0/s1600/SAM_1648.JPG

Many of the cracks are visibly bright white, so they're easy to spot. They're white because the broken edges of fiberglass vibrate against each other while driving, creating dust which then migrates out of the crack. But, not all cracks are so cooperative. There's an easy way to check for the less visible cracks too. A simple wipe down with mineral spirits will do. Wipe down the panel with a heavy dose of mineral spirits, then wipe it mostly dry. As the final bits of mineral spirits evaporates, any hidden cracks will seep mineral spirits onto the dry panel, making any small cracks show up. This is another one of the "repaired" areas:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p66cUMReZXs/VeJ837G2AuI/AAAAAAAABWg/3Ouk4bmgpB0/s1600/SAM_1656.JPG

All in all, there were 27 major cracks visible on the bottom side of the hood, and dozens more minor ones. Many were in areas that had already been "fixed." This is why when working with fiberglass, it's imperative to find a bodyshop that knows what they're doing. Had this car been finish bodyworked and painted, it would now need to be done again, and $10K worth of body and paint work would have basically been thrown away. Based on what I had seen with the hood on the car, I had expected that the bottom side of the hood would take me a weekend to fix. Turns out the damage is far more extensive than I had originally thought...

[ellowviper]

New hood ~ $3500.00 Fixing this x the hrs involved >$3500.

[daveg]

^^^^^ This.
I would just bite the bullet and be done with it once and for all. Just think, your worry's would be gone forever.

[Fatboy 18]

Looking forward to finding out how you intend to deal with the hood :)

What would worry me is not being able to get to the cracks between the inner and outer shell of the hood! Might be possible (with your skills) to take the hood apart, but not sure how one would get it back together again?

Awesome work and write up so far though :dude3:

Subscribed for more reports, keep up the great work :)

[ViperSmith]

New hood ~ $3500.00 Fixing this x the hrs involved >$3500.

I'd have to think also since the repair areas are stress points it is only a matter of time before having to do it all over again. I think the hood is probably the only part worth just replacing.

(Also, even though I don't have a Gen 2, this is one of my favorite threads on this forum)

[ellowviper]

Yeah...I love seeing the work and technical explanations from someone that actually is trained and experienced in these challenging repairs. Really impressive and makes me rethink some of the hack-jobs I did (or witnessed)in my 'younger' days.....

[Bugman Jeff]

New hood ~ $3500.00 Fixing this x the hrs involved >$3500.

New hood ~ $3,500. Paying someone to fix my hood > $3,500. Fixing my hood myself < $200.
Even if I were to factor in my time, it's still only around $1K(at the rate I was being paid when I was building cars for a living). But I don't count my time because this is a hobby, not a job :)


...makes me rethink some of the hack-jobs I did (or witnessed)in my 'younger' days.....
I recently started driving the car I had in high school. It had been in storage for years, and I had to do some repairs so I could use it as my driver while fixing the Viper. I keep coming across things I did back then and thinking "Seriously? I actually did that?" So many "temporary" repairs that ended up being semi-permanent... :)


I'd have to think also since the repair areas are stress points it is only a matter of time before having to do it all over again.

The reason so many of the areas recracked after being "repaired" is that they weren't done properly the first time. I've ground down some of them already. None of the cracks were ground out completely, and many of them were just filled with kitty hair instead of having actual fiberglass layed in. The areas that did have actual fiberglass layed on were just bridged over the crack, which is a sure sign that they WILL crack again. The previous "repairs" were essentially cosmetic repairs on structural cracks.

[daveg]

New hood ~ $3,500. Paying someone to fix my hood > $3,500. Fixing my hood myself < $200.
Even if I were to factor in my time, it's still only around $1K(at the rate I was being paid when I was building cars for a living). But I don't count my time because this is a hobby, not a job :)
I Agree you can do it cheaper. Having / have Corvette(s) in the past, the best way to fix a crack for me was to replace the panel. Maybe your a master at it and it will turn out perfect forever but I have seen too much body work come back out over time on fiberglass and with that many cracks in the hood, I would be forever fearful.
Good luck with your project and I as well like the detail to which you explain the process, keep it up!

[ellowviper]

Well...Us lurkers will get some great training as I'm sure the OP will post very detailed and professional "How To" tutorials as he goes about this complex repair. In all honesty, we should do a crowd-funding site to support this thread since the data and details are really "priceless" in this day and age!!

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm not doing anything that hasn't been covered dozens of times around the internet, I'm just doing it on a Viper instead of a boat or kit car. Many of my other non-bodywork tips and tricks aren't anything new either. I'm just taking the time to document them, and my how-tos aren't nearly as detailed as some of the ones other forum members have posted.

Also, for what it's worth, I still have under $25K in this whole car. A whole replacement hood would put me closer to "I could have just bought an uncrashed car" than I'd like to be :)

[daveg]

Also, for what it's worth, I still have under $25K in this whole car. A whole replacement hood would put me closer to "I could have just bought an uncrashed car" than I'd like to be :)
So that's kind of a good point!

[Bugman Jeff]

Just some quick tips about working with fiberglass for today. The first tip I have to share is to wear latex gloves when working with it. When I started the Viper's bodywork, I called it "The long and itchy road." As anyone who's ever actually worked with fiberglass will tell you, it can be a very itchy process. Fiberglass is called fiberGLASS because the cloth is literally microscopic strands of glass woven together. Your car or boat is literally made from the same material as the windows in your living room. While most people tend to thing of glass as solid, it's not. When you get it thin enough, it becomes very flexible which is why fiberglass cloth doesn't just shatter when you bend it. When you work with it, particularly when grinding, the air is filled with tiny glass shards that can get embedded in your skin. It doesn't cause any harm, but can itch like crazy. Gloves will help cut down on the itching a ton. Additionally, you don't want to breathe too much of it. Just like doing the occasional brake job won't give you mesothelioma, occasional fiberglass work and breathing in small quantities won't cause permanent damage, but you still want to avoid breathing it when you can. For heavy grinding or sanding, a dust mask is a good idea. It's also a good idea to have some "fiberglass working clothes" that you can take off immediately after you get in the house. You don't want to track itchy dust all over the place.

Speaking of dust, fiberglass and bodywork work tend to make a lot of it. Ideally, you want yo do your grinding and sanding outside on a breezy day so you're not working in a cloud of dust. Outside on a breezy day isn't always an option though. Either the weather won't cooperate or, like with my current project, I can't physically get the hood out of the garage by myself. This is where being popular helps. I always put my biggest fan right next to where I'm working. It'll blow the dust away from where I'm working, and (mostly) out of the garage.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ib2np0eoZT8/VeiBokluSgI/AAAAAAAABXo/IQR6tWSeOag/s1600/SAM_1701.JPG

Next is the matter of Post Curing. People think of fiberglass as an immovable solid, but it's not. Fiberglass can, and will, move all over the place, particularly as it's curing. Left on it's own, fiberglass can take weeks, or even months to fully cure and settle down to it's final shape. Even "fully cured" fiberglass will move a bit more on it's first day in the hot sun. This is where post curing comes in. While it's not so important on the bottom of a hood, on exterior panels, it's critical. Since we don't have the time to wait, we can speed things along in helping the 'glass take it's final set. The idea is to raise the temperature of the 'glass to speed up any remaining curing. Ideally, you want the glass to get up to 140°F, and stay at that temperature for a few hours. The sun works great, but isn't always available. Infrared heaters are the next best thing, but most people don't have access to those either. What a lot of people do have is halogen lights. Just set up your halogen light shining on the panel. If the light is too far away, the panel won't heat up enough. If it's too close, the panel will overheat. Find the best distance for your light to heat and hold the panel at 140°F. Since these lights are generally small, and the panel shape is complex, you should move it around every few hours so all the new glass gets baked.

Incidentally, this is the reason so many kit cars have such low quality panels. Even if the mold is straight, the parts are demolded too soon after laying up, and then are shipped out without post curing. This leads to very friendly panels that wave at everything. It's also why so many fiberglass cars with fresh bodywork look great this year, but terrible next year. When I was building kit cars for a living, we would let new parts sit in the mold for at least a week, usually longer, and then spend another week post curing them.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W2v94Vh9Omw/VeiBoIzCa4I/AAAAAAAABXs/oDbVhElYo28/s1600/SAM_1698.JPG

The last tip I have is of "don't burn your house down" importance. First off, always test your mixture before actually starting the repair. Mix up a batch of resin, and make sure it cures. Liquid fiberglass hardener in particular goes bad quickly after it's been opened, so I ALWAYS use a fresh tube of hardener if mine has been open more than a few days. Trust me, you don't want to have to peel off and re-do partially set fiberglass because your hardener failed and it won't fully cure.

Second, all compounds where you mix part A with part B to cause curing are exothermic. That means that they give off heat as they start to cure. Fiberglass, bondo, JB Weld, 5 min epoxy, etc, all produce heat as they cure. The amount of heat is determined by how fast they cure, and how thick the mass(thicker means more heat). If over catalyzed, fiberglass resin and epoxy especially can get tremendously hot as they cure. I tend to mix my resin a little "hot"(with too much hardener) to make sure it kicks off OK. I have, a time or two, mixed resin so hot that it's started smoking. It won't get that hot on the panel because the resin layer is relatively thin, but it will get that hot in the mixing cup. NEVER NEVER NEVER throw away mixed resin until it's cured and back to room temperature. It could start your garbage can on fire. Always set the cup on something non-flammable and non-meltable because that too can cause issues. Here's an example from this project. The bottom of this cup was flat when the resin was mixed. As it cured, it got hot enough to warp and melt the bottom of the cup.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YNNhreEz4Ck/VeiBnv_NtEI/AAAAAAAABXk/Hs07Zn3Cw8o/s1600/SAM_1695.JPG

[Bugman Jeff]

In true Jeff fashion, I picked the easiest crack on the Viper's hood to fix first. I started with the innocuous looking little crack high up on the hood. You all remember this guy:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WSAN7hNME3g/VevOYxb0L5I/AAAAAAAABYI/1gGvwI5UBcc/s1600/SAM_1648.JPG

It doesn't look look like much, just a short bit of cracked fiberglass. Removing the paint reveals the truth:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PLP4Y_FN7DQ/VevOYj0jnTI/AAAAAAAABYQ/CCvWQLm5tbc/s1600/SAM_1652.JPG

With the paint removed, the true extent of the crack can be seen. It extends half an inch further down, and an inch further across the top than was visible with the paint there. Further, the crack branches out towards the bottom. This is one area where a lot of fiberglass novices make their first mistake. They don't fully investigate the extent of the crack. If I had just ground and filled the visible crack, fully 1/3 of the crack(the hidden parts under the paint) would not have been fixed, and the crack would have kept spreading after it was "repaired." In order to properly repair the area, the whole crack MUST be ground out.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--voGXm1e9FU/VevOZMn1LPI/AAAAAAAABYY/ErpuoCXilg4/s1600/SAM_1653.JPG

The whole repair area is about 4" wide at this point, and you can see how the ground area is beveled down to the crack it's self. The areas of the crack it's self that are still "solid" are in fact paper thin. They are there just to serve as a backing to hold the new fiberglass. What's left of the actual crack is thin enough that resin will drip down through it. Since all fiberglass repair relies on mechanical adhesion, the original 'glass is ground with a 36 grit disc to give the new resin some "tooth" to grab on to(I also ground it down further after I took the pic).

This step is the reason why so many fiberglass "repairs" crack again. Many people not familiar with fiberglass repair will just grind into the crack some and 'glass over it(or even worse, just fill it with kitty hair or bondo). By doing that you're just covering it up, not actually fixing it.

Think of it like this: You can tape over your door seams, and the side of the car will look smooth. But, there is still a giant seam between the door and the body, and the door can still easily be opened. Just because you can't see the seam anymore doesn't mean it's not there, and just because it's not visible doesn't mean it's solidly immovable. Cracked fiberglass works the same way. If you don't completely remove the crack, the two broken halves will continue to flex independently, eventually causing the "repair" to crack again.

As I mentioned before, I'm using Evercoat's SMC resin. I've decided I like it for one reason: it doesn't use standard fiberglass hardener. Unlike standard resin which uses MEKP as a catalyst, the SMC resin uses the same cream hardener that bondo uses. Tangentially related fun fact: the chemical in bondo hardener that does the catalyzing is Benzoyl Peroxide, which is also the active ingredient in Clearasil and other acne fighting products. The reason I bring up the hardener is because it makes the resin much easier to use than standard resin. The MEKP catalyst used in standard fiberglass resin is a clear liquid. Because of this, there is no good way to tell when you've got the resin and hardener and mixed well enough. Because the SMC resin uses creme hardener instead(in either red, white, or blue), it's very easy to tell when you've got it mixed well enough. I've also found that the resin starts to change color as it catalyzes, giving you a warning that you've only got a few more minutes to work.

I built up the repair area with several layers of fiberglass. You can see because of the coloring how much thicker it gets towards the center of the repair area. It's built up to slightly above the original surface so it can later be taken down to the correct height. Because the bottom of the hood is more structural than cosmetic(and the hood pad covers much of it), the 'glass will be left at the finish height, any bondo that is used is more for filling pinholes in the fiberglass, and less for cosmetic flatness.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--leE73WVnVI/VevOZgLYExI/AAAAAAAABYg/hjAEx-WUvY0/s1600/SAM_1654.JPG

We now have the first crack properly repaired. Only a few dozen more, and we can put the hood back on :)

[Bugman Jeff]

Working from the back forward, I got all the minor cracks in the Viper's hood fixed. All that I had left was the front end. I decided to do the repair in four stages, the two corners, the center section, and the front lip. The previous owner of this car slid the passenger front corner of the nose under something. When that happened, that corner of the hood was shattered. I started with the most crunched area, the passenger front corner. I assumed from the beginning that I would have to redo all of the previous work, but I didn't know just how bad it was until I started grinding away at it.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tV_D1o9GHSM/VfZNz9pcosI/AAAAAAAABZA/iSvzzezQv1k/s1600/SAM_1660.JPG

Almost the moment I started grinding, I started finding poorly laminated "repairs," and layers that weren't really connected to anything. So I kept grinding. And grinding. And grinding. Even though it had already been "fixed," there were still tons of cracks in the original fiberglass. Like the previous repairs I've done, I ground out any and all cracks I could find. I also ground out nearly all of the previous repairs. Anything of the old repair that I did leave I left strictly as a backing for the new fiberglass I'd be putting in. You can see just how much of the nose was replaced. The white is the original panel, the darker color was part of the previous "repair". Also, there was a block of wood under the "repaired" fiberglass. Basically, I needed to rebuild the whole corner of the hood.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TuMobe88R24/VfZN0axhHKI/AAAAAAAABZE/aUFCCjMAFTY/s1600/SAM_1665.JPG

Ideally, you'd want your new fiberglass to be one big piece. Because of all the curves and corners on this thing, that is neither practical nor possible. You will never get a single big sheet of 'glass to go around all those corners and lay down flat. Trying it will just lead to frustration and more grinding, trust me on this. The next best thing is overlapping layers of smaller pieces. Smaller pieces will lay down easier, and go around corners better. Any time I do fiberglass work, I always plan where and how I'm going to position my pieces before I mix my resin. I cut and lay my pieces down about where they will be laminated onto the panel, then lift the whole thing off and lay the pieces out on cardboard in the order and approximate location where they will go. Pre-planning all this before I mix the resin allows for quicker layup, as well as keeps my scissors from getting sticky from cutting 'glass with resin covered gloves. Here you can see how all the overlapping layers of fiberglass will be placed.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w8C-1tXIMCk/VfZN0KtWdiI/AAAAAAAABY8/H7IjXRlg7G0/s1600/SAM_1664.JPG

With everything planned out, all I had to do was mix up the resin and lay it up. The pieces go on one at a time. Lay a piece of mat on, saturate it with resin, work the bubbles out, and repeat. Most of the new fiberglass is laminated to 1/4" thick, with many areas being even thicker. You'll notice the color of the resin is different here. As I've mentioned before, the Evercoat SMC resin uses standard bondo hardener. I decided to use blue hardener this time, mostly because I have a big tube of it.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LnXim3Vh1tE/VfZYR3cTF8I/AAAAAAAABaE/rv55FG0Z6dg/s1600/SAM_1674.JPG

With that done, I moved onto the other corner. This corner wasn't nearly as damaged. It also hadn't actually even been repaired. Only one crack was "fixed," the rest were left from the accident. So, like everything else, I ground out all the cracks, and the previous repair material.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WKgffUuYTgo/VfZN1OqMArI/AAAAAAAABZM/91_rkM59PhI/s1600/SAM_1673.JPG

Same deal as last time, cut the mat, plan the layers of fiberglass, and add some resin.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_LwzDMyxMK8/VfZN9gUtHEI/AAAAAAAABZc/IYvKWFrqDtI/s1600/SAM_1675.JPG

The third area I needed to fix was the center section. This area had a big crack going through it and instead of laying in more actual fiberglass, it was just filled with Kitty Hair(fiberglass reinforced body filler). Kitty hair in useful for some things, fixing cracks in fiberglass isn't one of them. So, once again, I ground out the cracks and previous repair material. This repair also overlaps my previous corner repairs. Now, fiberglass won't stick very well to shiny surfaces, and cured fiberglass is (relatively) shiny. Any time you put new 'glass over cured 'glass, you need to grind the shiny off of it. 24 and 36 grit grinding wheels work best. Even though you don't have interlocking layers, if it's ground back like this the fiberglass should never have delamination issues. Here you can see the cracks ground out, and my previous repairs ground back so the latest layer of fiberglass will stick.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MxBTYtT2sQQ/VfZN2w95cDI/AAAAAAAABZU/L6Itql7BiSE/s1600/SAM_1677.JPG

Same routine, cut, plan, add resin.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IGKRmCOQhQs/VfZOF_XUTSI/AAAAAAAABZ0/HyC60d_dZXo/s1600/SAM_1679.JPG

The last section to do is the front lip. I decided to do the front lip as it's own separate section because it has so much damage. I decided I would just rebuilt the whole front edge. It's also easier to manage as it's own section, and I wanted to lay it up very thick. For the new front lip, I decided that the bulk of it would be built from the bottom, and only the outer surface would be rebuilt from the outside. To do it I ground back all the fiberglass, both old and new, until I just had a very thin edge left to use as a guide/backstop.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rohAT8Dlnes/VfZN-zrk7nI/AAAAAAAABZk/zJVo0MZB3Hg/s1600/SAM_1687.JPG

To backfill the lip, I laid in lots of long strips of fiberglass. All in all, most of the lip ended up being around 1/2" thick.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qho7i2foWuY/VfZOFwd_RQI/AAAAAAAABZw/WvFxVi6paRA/s1600/SAM_1690.JPG

And that's all the fiberglass that needed to be added to the bottom of the hood. It may not look like much, but to give you a sense of how thick most of the new fiberglass is, I used almost 30 sq/ft of fiberglass mat and 3/4 gallon of resin.

[Fatboy 18]

Outstanding work, would scare the like out of me!

[My98RT10]

Wow, very impressive work, to say the least!

[Bugman Jeff]

I've spent most of my posts explaining how to do things. I'm going to take a minute now to explain a why. Since I started fixing the Viper's body, one of the big things I've been harping on is the need to do things right to prevent future cracking. I've also mentioned repeatedly how the previous "repairs" on the car weren't done properly. You'll notice that I always put repairs in quotes. With cracked fiberglass, you CAN'T just band-aid it, it must be done properly or it WILL crack again. As with many other things on this project, the hood has again provided me a perfect example to demonstrate why.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PrOrCRfODOE/VffFC50gYGI/AAAAAAAABaY/LX5LHiY-29U/s1600/SAM_1622.JPG

Lets take a closer look at this crack here. As I mentioned a few posts back, this crack appeared after the car had been "repaired." That much is obvious because it's cracked through the primer that covers the "repair." The question is why did this "repaired" crack come back?

Without the paint covering it up, the reason was very apparent on the bottom of the hood. Here's where the crack is on the bottom side of the hood. The white is the original panel. All the 'glass on the bottom is stuff I added during my repairs(and before I repaired the front lip). The stuff in the middle is just kitty hair(fiberglass reinforced filler) from the previous "repair." You can see that not only is the crack still very much there, there are voids in the kitty hair and much of it isn't actually bonded to anything. The crack is basically just bondo'd over. While it might have looked smooth from the outside the structure is cracked and has no strength.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mPPgJTlFZiQ/VffFD2n9pnI/AAAAAAAABak/k9GudfkbZl4/s1600/SAM_1681.JPG

Grinding into the back side of the crack further shows how poorly this crack was "repaired." Not only was the crack only glossed over on the top side, just below the surface on the back side there is no more filler. There is just a large void under the crack. So, we're left with a still cracked panel that has no reinforcement behind it.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uarlUiGe7aw/VffFEPELHgI/AAAAAAAABao/Dal6SASj0mA/s1600/SAM_1682.JPG

It's no wonder that this crack reappeared. There's almost nothing holding the shattered fiberglass together. The top side just has a skim coat of filler covering the crack. The back side has a little filler just kind of holding the pieces together. This, right here, is why so many repaired fiberglass panels crack again. Covering up a crack doesn't address the problem, it just makes it look nice temporarily. You can't actually repair a crack in fiberglass, you must completely remove the crack and replace it with new fiberglass. If you just cover a crack with bondo or even a layer of fiberglass, it's not a matter of if the crack will reappear, but when.

[2Luke2]

Awesome work Jeff! This is a great thread to follow! I have a question though, what do you do with fiberglass that has been drilled into. For example we have a gen 2 car where we took off a rear wing. Well there are now four 1/2-3/4 holes drilled into the rear deck area, right now we just put plastic caps from ACE Hardware in them in case we want to reattach the wing, however since we are thinking of painting the whole car another color we would like to fill the holes the right way. We have no prior experience with fiberglass so we would most likely have to take it to someone before we can paint. What questions do we ask to know someone is going to do the job right and not just fill the holes with the wrong stuff?

[Bugman Jeff]

The best way to repair holes like that would be to treat them the same way you would a crack. Bevel the edge back a few inches with a grinder and lay in new 'glass. Holes should be easier to fix than cracks because the hole generally won't go anywhere, you don't need to worry about an existing crack propagating under the repair. Finding a shop to do the work can be problematic. It's often hard to judge if a shop really knows what they're doing, and you wouldn't know if they screwed it up until it fails down the road. Other than asking something like which products do they use(SMC specific or epoxy resin is required) or how long they post cure the repair before paint, there isn't really any way to know unless you can actually look at cars they've repaired in the past. You may want to see if there are any boat repair bodyshops in the area. Neatly all fiberglass boats these days are SMC, so a place that specializes in boats should know what they're doing. Places that specialize in late Corvettes should be OK too, all 'Vettes from '73 on are SMC.

[Roller]

Jeff, I think you should change your handle to Glassman Jeff! Lots of time and effort going into that hood, great work!

Frank

[2Luke2]

The best way to repair holes like that would be to treat them the same way you would a crack. Bevel the edge back a few inches with a grinder and lay in new 'glass. Holes should be easier to fix than cracks because the hole generally won't go anywhere, you don't need to worry about an existing crack propagating under the repair. Finding a shop to do the work can be problematic. It's often hard to judge if a shop really knows what they're doing, and you wouldn't know if they screwed it up until it fails down the road. Other than asking something like which products do they use(SMC specific or epoxy resin is required) or how long they post cure the repair before paint, there isn't really any way to know unless you can actually look at cars they've repaired in the past. You may want to see if there are any boat repair bodyshops in the area. Neatly all fiberglass boats these days are SMC, so a place that specializes in boats should know what they're doing. Places that specialize in late Corvettes should be OK too, all 'Vettes from '73 on are SMC.

Thank you sir, the information sharing is very much appreciated. Please let us know if you come out of retirement... we love to drive and you aren't that far away from us haha!

[Bugman Jeff]

Try as hard as I might, I couldn't get all the bodywork done on the Viper. Every time I got going on it, other people would start making demands on my time. I thought about putting up a sign in my yard that said "Go Away." Now it's too cold out for fiberglass and bondo to cure properly, so I figured that since I'm already almost a month behind real time I might as well catch up on my posting. When we last left the Viper, I'd just finished laying in all the new fiberglass on the bottom side of the hood. Since the fiberglass is what makes up the structure, we could just leave it as it with some minor trimming. But, it's the bottom side of a hood in an engine compartment that a whole lot of people ask to see so it has to look pretty too.

Before we can really start grinding, we need to know where to stop. In a few areas where there was original undamaged fiberglass, I left some spots of the original black paint. I know that paint is where it should be, so I know that that is where the surface should be when I'm done. None of it is super critical on the front of the hood, but you still want to make sure the latch hooks are close enough to their original position that it will latch properly(even then, the latch has a lot of adjustability in it). The round circle is one of the hood scoop nut recesses, the odd shaped black splotch is original paint telling me where the surface should be once we're done.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aQpGS0wgLGs/Vhh3FbNJ45I/AAAAAAAABc8/L73lcJXyG5Q/s1600/SAM_1706.JPG

I started again with my trusty Harbor Freight grinders, first the 7" to knock down and level the big flat areas, then my 4.5" to hit the smaller areas, and finally a 2" pneumatic grinder for the tight spots. Grinding it down serves two purposes, first to knock down any high spots, and second to roughen up the surface for additional filler work. Here it is all ground up. You can see the shape is roughed in pretty well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N1q-qWxCLmc/Vhh3GU5llqI/AAAAAAAABdA/MnOh56-Rc3Q/s1600/SAM_1707.JPG

You'll notice that three of the four the hood latch hook holes have been completely fiberglassed over. Before I put any filler on, I want to be sure I know where they are. Here is where Mineral Spirits works some more of it's magic. Wiping the ground fiberglass with mineral spirits turns it transparent enough that you can see through it. here you can see one of the hood latch hook holes under the fiberglass. It shows up as the dark circle about in the middle of the picture. All the holes will get drilled out before I add any filler.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cVrZgyF-qLI/Vhh3F7OnJPI/AAAAAAAABdE/fi30ZOXgflo/s1600/SAM_1717.JPG

Here's the part that I don't generally recommend, but am going to break my own rule and do it anyway. I've mentioned filler a few times. Standard body fillers work good for a lot of things, but they don't have much strength. Fiberglass is strong, but is hard to work with(and sands like concrete.). There is a product that lands directly between the two, fiberglass reinforced body filler(often called Kitty Hair or Tiger Hair). It's essentially bondo with chopped up fiberglass in it, and has the added benefit of being waterproof like fiberglass(and unlike standard bondo).

I don't generally recommend it for two reasons. First, because it's fiberglass reinforced and stronger than standard fillers, a lot of people use it instead of doing proper repairs. This hood had several areas that were just filled with kitty hair instead of being repaired properly with fiberglass. Far too often I see kitty hair band-aids on things that need actual repair, both on fiberglass and metal cars. Second is the bubbles...

Because of the fiberglass strands in it, kitty hair doesn't mix or spread as well as bondo(especially the long strand variety). As a result, you often end up with large bubbles or voids in the filler that might cause problems down the road. I decided that for the bottom side of the hood, I wanted the extra strength of the reinforced filler and would just deal with the bubbles. You can see here the kinds of voids and bubbles you typically get in kitty hair:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--3xwRY0ec5o/Vhh3HobXOCI/AAAAAAAABdc/TfV9-CWrTH0/s1600/SAM_1728.JPG

You can't just fill the voids because filler won't stick to the (relatively) shiny surface of the bubble. The only way to deal with them is to grind them out first, then fill them. Using a carbide burr in my die grinder, I ground out all the bubbles I could find. In addition to the big obvious ones, there were also a whole lot of pinholes that needed to be filled.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UlHF6KyxyRI/Vhh3IDSXpaI/AAAAAAAABdg/fkLqQyUf7EE/s1600/SAM_1729.JPG

Once the bubbles were ground out, I filled them with regular body filler and sanded it all smooth:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fNeNLYiWg1I/Vhh3InwckfI/AAAAAAAABds/ttIJkTm9oYw/s1600/SAM_1730.JPG

Unlike the outside of a car which is generally pretty even, the bottom side of the hood has lots of odd shapes and small contours, so it took a variety of sanding tools to work everything smooth. For all the filler work, I used 80 grit sandpaper. I bought a big roll of sticky back 80 grit, it's the most economical way to buy it. From top to bottom I have my rigid 6" block, a flexible 6" block, a rigid 3" block, half a tongue depressor wrapped in sandpaper, a whole tongue depressor wrapped with sand paper, and my trusty 8" Durablock. For this kind of work, improvised sanding blocks are often necessary too. Find something that fits where you need it to fit, and wrap it in sandpaper.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JBioFgoE3x8/Vhh3JJ8hOmI/AAAAAAAABdw/-6wBfya9BO8/s1600/SAM_1750.JPG

Even though most of the surface is covered in filler, it's not very thick. Just like laying the fiberglass down, I worked a section at a time until I had the shape I wanted.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kv6CtovHvnc/Vhh3GzQRoqI/AAAAAAAABdU/SRJa53jyzr8/s1600/SAM_1722.JPG

Once the filler was sanded down, I renewed my love affair with Duratec primer-surfacer. It's just such a wonderful product, and it's made specifically for fiberglass to boot. The repaired areas of the hood got a healthy dose, followed by sanding with 220 grit paper. Normally, you'd want to sand much finer than that for paint or you'll get sand scratches showing through, but I'm going to do something a little bit different and don't need a super fine finish. For now, just enjoy the Duratec'd goodness...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZVN3U6LmAhU/Vhh3JmV2grI/AAAAAAAABd4/lc1hRqW_c0o/s1600/SAM_1751.JPG

[DaveW]

Totally awesome work, Jeff! Thanks for taking the time to illustrate and explain for us.

[Firewater]

Wow! I just got caught up in this thread. Amazing work Jeff!!! :)

[Bugman Jeff]

Thanks guys, slowly but surely it's coming along :)
It's still too cold to do any actual work on the Viper, so I'll do more posting instead. It's time to finish the bottom of the Viper's hood. Unlike the paint on the outside of the car, the paint on the bottom of a Viper's hood is not catalyzed. If you wipe it with a strong solvent like lacquer thinner, it comes right off. Because of that, I don't feel bad using non-catalyzed products to refinish it. I'm also going to cheat just a little bit because I know my work isn't exactly as it was originally anyway. I'm going to use a pair of SEM products. As a company, SEM doesn't make any bad products. Their Color Coat plastic/leather/vinyl/cloth paint beats Duratec as my #1 favorite product. Here, I'm using a pair of products I've had good results with in the past. The first is #39853 Texture Coat, the second is #39143 Trim Black.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QD6Iz88V2I8/ViMoVRg5xlI/AAAAAAAABfI/A22s-1Lf23M/s1600/SAM_1752.JPG

Texture Coat is just that, it's meant to give some texture to an otherwise smooth surface. The Texture Coat is made to match OEM textured surfaces like you find on bumpers and some interior plastic parts. You can also vary the texture by changing your spraying distance and how heavy you put it on(and as a benefit in my case, it will also hide sand scratches). Here you can see the texture I ended up with on the Viper's hood.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GXEeNnJzXr8/ViMoU1xaTcI/AAAAAAAABfM/HOH-QUzz1z4/s1600/SAM_1753.JPG

Trim Black is a satin black that very closely matches a lot of OEM finishes like you sometimes find under hoods, in fenderwells, and misc exterior trim. It's very close to the original black under the Viper's hood. It's a good, durable, air dry paint that stick well to most surfaces. It looks a bit shiny and uneven here, but it's still wet. Once dry, it's a bit more satin, and very even.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6jPfCxp_PKE/ViMoU7wBQBI/AAAAAAAABfQ/1SF-dHMSBNY/s1600/SAM_1754.JPG

That's about it for the bottom of the hood. The only thing left is to reinstall the hood pad and put the hood back on. I expected the bottom of the hood to be a weekend project, but it was a month and a half before I actually got it done. It was far more damaged, and the repair done much more poorly than I expected. Even though it was off the car for a month and a half, because of the other demands on my time, I really probably only have 35-40 hours in it. An actual professional bodyman probably could have had it done in 20-25 hours. It's not a complete 100% match to a factory hood, but given what I've got in it and where this car started, it's more than good enough :)

[Fatboy 18]

Great work :dude3:

[Bugman Jeff]

With the hood back on the car, I could finally get started on the important part, the top side(although really since the top is just for decoration while the bottom actually provides the structure, it should be the other way around). The "repairs" on the top of the hood are another exercise in how not to do things. Instead of diving right in with my grinder, I used my DA to sand the paint off, exposing the "repairs" in all their "glory."

The first thing I noticed was that this hood has been painted FIVE TIMES. I don't mean there were five coats of paint on it, there were five distinct base/clear layers. I know the bumper skin was repainted because it's flaking in places. I had no idea that the hood it's self had been repainted, much less five times. All the damage I found was from the crash that wrecked it just before I got it, so I don't know why the hood was painted so many time. Anyway, lets look at a picture, because you're all really here for the pictures, right?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O4FBwMkF_kM/Vi5b9BEh7GI/AAAAAAAABfk/Jc_icXc8GRI/s1600/SAM_1763.JPG

One pic, lots of trouble...
1. There is a crack here repaired with fiberglass. As you can see, the fiberglass is laid OVER the paint. Paint is not a suitable substrate for fiberglass. It wasn't properly ground down, and will have adhesion issues. The whole repair could literally pop off the part because the only thing holding it on is paint.
2. Cracks filled with bondo. They didn't even bother to grind out the crack on the right(that's the one we took an in depth look at a few posts back). It's no wonder it recracked, there is no structure holding the crack together.
3. Loose/delaminated fiberglass. We'll take a closer look at this area later on
4. In a one-two punch, here we have more fiberglass on top of paint, and more crackes just skimmed with bondo.
5. A crack that was ground a bit, but not completely gone so the crack continued to spread.
6. Fiberglass laid in without a proper bevel. These are major cracks and in several areas the only thing the new 'glass is holding onto is the vertical edge of the old 'glass. In time, these crack would reappear.

Here's a closer look at area 2, where the crack reappeared. You can see there is nothing holding the cracks together but a bondo bandaid. It's a wonder that it lasted as long as it did before recracking.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lRBhLMdSil4/Vi5b-BO2ARI/AAAAAAAABf0/rdPIKMjSDfk/s1600/SAM_1772.JPG

Here's an up close look at area 3. The impact from the crash caused some of the fiberglass to delaminate. You can see the ragged dark edges towards the center of the pic where some fibers of the top layer of fiberglass broke loose from the rest of the sheet. They were just skimmed with bondo. This sort of damage may or may not ever develop into a full crack, but it will definitely cause paint adhesion problems as the broken layer of fiberglass can move independently of the rest of the sheet. You can also see a myriad of still existing cracks under the fiberglass repair on the left side of the picture.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7h_-Kc3UlX4/Vi5l1IdGlOI/AAAAAAAABgQ/puxMIdP42BU/s1600/SAM_1775.JPG

One more picture, because everyone likes pictures. Area 4 is basically all the other problem areas combined in one area. There is just so much wrong in this picture...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b-EMPZuI7aA/Vi5b-y3bicI/AAAAAAAABgA/VebXLxPt8ss/s1600/SAM_1777.JPG

[Whitemamba]

Wow! Talk about nice skills. I started on page 1 and read all the way through. I am in awe and also aware that I will never have the skills to attempt something like this. Well maybe on my Corvette, but never on my Viper. I know my limitations. lol Awesome work and can't wait to see more.

[Bugman Jeff]

None of it is as easy as it looks in the pictures, but none of it is really all that hard. Almost all the stuff I've done has been with minimal tools(many of which came from Harbor Freight) in a garage that's closer to "shack" than "garage." Anybody can do it if they have the time to invest. The most challenging part is the bodywork, and even that is mostly grinding and roughing. The hardest part of doing bodywork is getting the panel flat so it looks good painted, and if you're not happy with hoe it looks, you can always add more bondo and sand it again. Remember, there is no such thing as a mistake, only more grinding.

[Camfab]

Great work!

[Bugman Jeff]

Time to actually start fixing the top of the Viper's hood. I started with the crack in the upper passenger's corner of the hood scoop. As you can see in the pic, after it was "fixed" it continued to crack. You can also see towards the bottom of the pic another crack that never got addressed at all:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eayYtMGYhB0/Vj7nRC6tZ2I/AAAAAAAABgg/OF7tTv23ETE/s1600/SAM_1771.JPG

Grinding into the crack revealed another problem. Just like the area further down the hood, some of the fiberglass has delaminated. There are some fibers that have broken loose from the rest of the panel. You can see too that though the main crack had some new fiberglass over it, it was still very much there.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CWSiNyMl9q8/Vj7nQzEZZTI/AAAAAAAABgs/rDH1nqcBTXY/s1600/SAM_1779.JPG

When you start grinding onto these things, it's actually fairly easy to see the cracks and delamination. As you're grinding, you just keep following the cracks until you get back into solid fiberglass. If you're not ready for it, it can start to look pretty grim as you keep grinding, and grinding, and you're still chasing the crack. With this crack for example, I ended up having to grind out a sizable chunk of hood to get rid of all the damage. Much of it goes all the way down to the inner panel.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IhYBk7Pnj2g/Vj7nRt-FM1I/AAAAAAAABg0/wquPCTKz0cQ/s1600/SAM_1780.JPG

The rest of the repair is the same as any of the other repairs I've showed. I do have another bit of how-to to add though. As you're laying up fiberglass, you are going to get bubbles in the resin. Bubbles can cause problems down the road, particularly if they're close to the surface. You can, to some extent, use a bondo spreader to work the bubbles out, but it doesn't always work for small bubbles. Fortunately, there's a tool for that. For around $15, you can buy a fiberglass roller. It's made specifically for rolling out fiberglass, and works great for working out bubbles.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RtLs7ntsbss/Vj7nk-NbOTI/AAAAAAAABg4/JSI8Y7Om1qE/s1600/SAM_1781.JPG

The only down side to a fiberglass roller is that you have to use it and get it clean before the resin starts to set. If the resin sets before it's clean, you may as well throw it away. Dunking it in a tub of acetone will help dissolve the resin, as well as slow down the reaction giving you a few more minutes to get it clean.

[Fatboy 18]

So nice to see something being done right :) Thanks for taking all the pics along the way.

[ACRSNK]

Great thread and nice work! That Viper is lucky to have found you.

[whitebluevipe]

this is an awesome tutorial

[Bugman Jeff]

That Viper is lucky to have found you.

I see it as the other way around. The only reason I'm here at all is because I stumbled across a wrecked car that the owner couldn't afford to have fixed. Though I've always wanted one, I never really looked because they were always out of my "comfortable" price range. It was purely by chance that this car came up for sale when it did :)

[MarylandM3]

Awesome thread!! Loved reading through and watching the progress and am looking forward to seeing it continue to progress!

[Firewater]

Hey Jeff, anything new to report? :)

[Bugman Jeff]

Hey Jeff, anything new to report? :)

Yup, I still have some updates that haven't been posted yet. I'm about two months behind real time on my posting. Stupid real life, getting in the way of my internet fun...

[Bugman Jeff]

Just a little update because I'm so far behind on my posting. Continuing my theme of smallest to biggest, I fixed some more cracks on the Vipers hood. Same process as the last ones and like all the others they looked like tiny imperfections until I started grinding into them. Same location too, the corners of the hood scoop hole create stress points where cracks will start if flexed enough. You can so see that I've got a tarp laid out under the hood. It's there to keep most of the dust out of the engine compartment, and catch any drips of fiberglass resin or Bondo. For the time being, I'm also not worried about fiberglassing over the paint. Normally that's a huge no-no, but the whole area will be sanded down to bare fiberglass before the bodywork is completed, and none of the paint overlapped areas will still be there once that's done.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XdJCv_IMqeE/VmUOFebUgCI/AAAAAAAABhI/XC8F4tgOGSY/s1600/SAM_1787.JPG

[ACR]

Jeff fantastic work and THANK YOU for illustrating and explaining each step of the repair process, very helpful to folks such as myself who only dabbled in fiberglass. I wish you all the best sir.

[Gadukka]

Never saw a Viper that broken. You did great job to make it look like it should be. Carry on and I hope you'll get this beatiful beast looks great

[Bugman Jeff]

Never saw a Viper that broken. You did great job to make it look like it should be. Carry on and I hope you'll get this beatiful beast looks great

It doesn't take much in these cars, they'll bite without warning. I don't really know the details of the crash that wrecked it, but I know it was pretty low speed and, based on what I know of the guy from the little contact we had, I'm guessing he was trying to show off. The front didn't hit hard enough to blow the airbags, and the driver's side impact crunched the door but didn't push in far enough to reach the exhaust. It really looked worse than it actually is. Most everything else I've done is just regular maintenance and TLC :)

[C.J]

Impressive work! Jeff, if you had to do the hood all over again, would you look for a used hood instead of putting in the hours to repair the existing one?

[damstr]

This thread is awesome.

[Bugman Jeff]

Impressive work! Jeff, if you had to do the hood all over again, would you look for a used hood instead of putting in the hours to repair the existing one?

No, I've always been the "fix things if I can" type, and while it can sometimes be tedious I don't really mind doing bodywork. Not to mention replacement hoods are pricey, and I've still got under $25K in the whole car :)

[Bugman Jeff]

Here's a brief side note in our hood repairing saga. I've been going on and on about how you have to do things right when fixing fiberglass. It's not hard to do, but it is easy to mess up little things and have problems down the road. This is one of those little things. It's not uncommon to see Gen I and II Vipers with bubbles in the paint, even on cars that have never been wrecked or repainted. They look just like rust bubbles would on a steel car. My car is no exception, two places on the hood had these bubbles. They're easy to see when you're looking at the car, but very hard to photograph in 2D. To make the bubble stand out, I lightly sanded over it so you can see it clearly.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oPHevXmGEZE/Vn4QzkVgttI/AAAAAAAABhc/SU0MxPYLFME/s1600/SAM_1830.JPG

Then I started sanding down into it with my DA. Even though my hood has been repainted several times, it wasn't re-work that caused this bubble. It goes all the way down to the fiberglass. The original factory primer lost adhesion to the fiberglass. A large chunk of it was no longer stuck down, and that's what caused the bubble. It's also why some cars have bubbles when the body is hot but they seem to disappear again when the body cools down, the loose paint gets hot and expands more than the fiberglass beneath it.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W--Rbm_idKU/Vn4QzCj7D3I/AAAAAAAABhg/uXSF16ZByHY/s1600/SAM_1831.JPG

It just goes to show that even the experts can sometimes have trouble getting everything to work right with fiberglass.

[ellowviper]

Like rings on a tree...That thing had more than a few coats of this and that over the years!!

[Bugman Jeff]

I know, right? This car must have had an interesting life. And, each layer has a base and clear coat, not just five coats of paint, but five full repaints on the hood. The front fascia has been repainted too, but not as many times as the hood. The quarter panels I fixed were still in original paint, and I know the hood didn't have any major damage before the crash that I'm fixing. The windshield is cracked from a stone chip too, and as best as I can tell was like that when the guy I got it from bought it. Maybe one of the previous owners had a thing for driving on gravel roads and couldn't stand stone chips?

[EricMcClellan]

Read this entire thread and very impressed.

I'm in MN, so maybe you'll have to come down and redo mine while your bored ;)

[Bugman Jeff]

Read this entire thread and very impressed.

I'm in MN, so maybe you'll have to come down and redo mine while your bored ;)
I'll see if I can fit it in. I'll pencil you in, and I should have some free time around 2028 :D

[Bugman Jeff]

From time to time, I fall off the face of the internet and people won't hear from me for weeks or months at the time... At this rate, it'll be warm again before I get to posting all the work I did last fall. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program...

I saved the biggest crack in the Viper's hood for last. This crack goes all the way across the hood from the scoop to the headlight. The lower corner was cracked off too. It's pretty ugly down there...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jzwOA4RJT4I/Vq2cSN8WBiI/AAAAAAAABhw/fGBCJkVXJfc/s1600/SAM_1791.JPG

Like everything else, this giant crack was never repaired right. Even though the crack was actually fixed with fiberglass, all the damage wasn't removed. There is still a lot of delamination along the edges of the crack.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IR9Wr_PseXI/Vq2cSmfRdLI/AAAAAAAABh0/z3Ormnyjs08/s1600/SAM_1792.JPG

The surprises never end when redoing someone else's work, you never know what you're going to find. In this case, a lag bolt, just chillin' between the top and bottom layers of fiberglass, visible through one of the holes towards the bottom of the pic. No reason for it to be there, it wasn't holding anything. This is about as far down as I ground the fiberglass too. While it's still mostly solid, it's paper thin and is only there to provide enough backing to keep the new fiberglass from sagging.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V-3ChTEiL7I/Vq2cSvXZUnI/AAAAAAAABh4/lDTSwYwsQoE/s1600/SAM_1793.JPG

While I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure if I ever explained why I'm using fiberglass mat instead of woven cloth. Thickness for thickness, woven cloth is stronger than mat but it's harder to work with. It doesn't go around corners as well as mat does. Being easier to work with isn't the primary reason through, the real reason is shrinkage. Fiberglass and bondo shrink a tiny bit for awhile after they set up. If you don't properly cure, then post cure your work it will shrink more. Even if you do it right, fiberglass and bondo will still shrink a tiny bit over time as the remaining VOCs slowly evaporate out. This is the biggest reason why I wanted to get the fiberglass and major bodywork work done last fall, and wait to paint it next summer with many hot days in the sun in between, to give the bodywork time to shrink before final sanding, priming, and painting. If/when the bodywork does shrink, the weave of the fiberglass may become visible. Our eyes and brains are GREAT at picking out patterns. If you use woven cloth, your eye will be drawn to the obviously square weave pattern of the cloth, and it will be very noticeable under the paint. Mat on the other hand has fibers meshed in a random pattern. If you do get enough shrinkage to see the weave, the random pattern will be much less noticeable. It won't draw the eye like woven cloth will.

For this repair, I used pieces of fiberglass big enough to cover the whole area. Generally speaking, the bigger the piece you can use, the better. On things like the bottom of the hood with all it's curves big sheets just don't work, but on big flat outer surfaces, they work great. I used an entire 8 sq/ft package of fiberglass mat on just this one layup. This is part of the reason I did all the small spots first, so the top layers of fiberglass could be done in big sheets.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kWYYQtdfE68/Vq2cTR0zBAI/AAAAAAAABiA/2x7hzx4pJbw/s1600/SAM_1794.JPG

After grinding that down, it was time for the last bit of fiberglass work on the hood. You'll remember from earlier posts that the front lip was pretty cracked up. When I did the back, I ground the lip to a very thin outer shell and layed 'glass in behind it. For the topside, I ground it back until I hit the new 'glass I put in, then layed full length strips across the nose.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hahfH29_lEY/Vq2czcTJMGI/AAAAAAAABiU/4U4m_CE2e1c/s1600/SAM_1795.JPG

With just some more grinding and trimming, that's about it for the fiberglass repairs on the hood. Everything else from here on out is body filler work. Also keep in mind that even though I layed fiberglass over existing paint, it's a huge no-no for finish work. Anyplace there is fiberglass over paint, it's still higher than the finished surface needs to be. Before adding bondo and doing the final bodywork, all the high spots in the fiberglass(where it's overlapping any paint) will be sanded down and ALL of the paint will be sanded off the repair areas. But more on that later...

[Bugman Jeff]

Seriously, at this rate I'll have the car out again before I'm done posting all the stuff I did last fall... With the hood fiberglass done, it's time for bondo. I've already posted why Bondo brand bondo is terrible and should be avoided at all costs. My biggest complaints are that it spreads poorly, and sands hard. I mean, it works, but you end up using more effort and going through more sandpaper than with other fillers. There are much, much better products for not a whole lot more money. My filler of choice is Evercoat Rage Gold. It's about $20 more per gallon than Bondo, but the time and sandpaper it saves are well worth it. Concidering the $800 I'm likely to spend on just primer, paint, and clear, an extra $20/gallon for filler is nothing.

The first thing I did was sand down all the fiberglass with 80 grit sandpaper. All the 'glass was sanded close to the final panel height, and all the left over paint was removed from the repair area. Then I mixed up a big batch of bondo and covered the whole area in one go. The big blue tarp not only helps keep the dust out of the engine compartment, it also catches drips in the bondo.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uNJM8VsLhs4/VuG3KORkJDI/AAAAAAAABjM/pQ2EYBDx0Fg/s1600/SAM_1798.JPG

If you catch the filler at just the right point while it's hardening, you can remove a whole lot of material very quickly. Using my longest sanding block and 80 grit paper, I sanded the whole area down. You want to use the longest sanding block you can because you'll end up with a flatter result. NEVER use power tools for your final filler work. If you do bodywork all day every day, you're probably good enough to get away with it, but if you're inexperienced, power sanders will leave you with a very wavy surface. It quickly becomes apparent when sanding where the highs and lows are. The highs get sanded down some more, and the lows get more filler. Ideally, you want no more than 1/8" of filler thickness, any deeper than that could conceivably crack(though that's unlikely) and should be filled with fiberglass instead. Pinholes in the fiberglass should be ground out too, to avoid problems down the road.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wgI0-EXtsiE/VuG3KTQQhdI/AAAAAAAABjM/iSab1FypfKk/s1600/SAM_1799.JPG

You'll notice that I bondoed right over the edge of the hood scoop hole too. Since much of that area is new too, it also needed some work. With the scoop as a guide, I used my die grinder, some square files, and a sandpaper covered popsicle stick to remake the scoop relief. Here it is in progress:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bSYpujzXYW0/VuG3KREmb4I/AAAAAAAABjM/OoEmXbHe8sk/s1600/SAM_1800.JPG

Because the whole front lip of the hood is new, I want to be sure that the curve of the hood matches the curve in the fascia. To make sure they match, I made a simple template with foam core posterboard. It'll get me closer than I can eyeball(and no, I'm not holding it straight in the top pic).

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A4C0kKLa-HQ/VuG3LQzrpLI/AAAAAAAABjM/NRdct3vmy5Q/s1600/hood%2Bguide.jpg

[Bugman Jeff]

Also, because I don't think I mentioned it anywhere even though the pics show it, I have tape over any areas that could get accidentally scratched with the sandpaper. This included the headlights, and parts of the fascia. Even if you think you'll be super careful, you'll still scratch something you didn't mean to. The tape provides some added protection.

[Fatboy 18]

Just love this thread, thanks so much for posting up your work. Great to see something being put together the correct way :)

[C.J]

Good info regarding the bondo product of choice, and the difference between fiberglass mat vs. woven cloth. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished hood!

I'm still blown away by the number of repaints on the hood. How many owners did this GTS have before you rescued it?

[ViperVass]

Hey Jeff,

Incredible thread!

If you don't mind me asking: what is your current expenditure at ?
I've always wondered whether it would be cheaper to fix a dinged Viper or buy an un-dinged one.

Since I don't have any car repair skills a project like yours is out of my league, but would still like to know whether it is economically feasible.

[Fatboy 18]

Hey Jeff,

Incredible thread!

If you don't mind me asking: what is your current expenditure at ?
I've always wondered whether it would be cheaper to fix a dinged Viper or buy an un-dinged one.

Since I don't have any car repair skills a project like yours is out of my league, but would still like to know whether it is economically feasible.

If you have to pay other people to do this work I would have thought the price would be through the roof, not economically feasible, thats why Mopar sell replacement parts, easy to replace items and keep labour costs down.
Its the man hours involved that would kill a project like this. :(

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm still blown away by the number of repaints on the hood. How many owners did this GTS have before you rescued it?

No kidding! It's like sanding the layers off an onion. Since it's just the hood and front fascia that have been painted so many times with no evidence of fiberglass damage, I think one of the previous owners must have had the thing redone for every stone chip. I Carfaxed it once shortly after I got it. I didn't think to copy down any of the info, but I think it was 5 previous owners maybe? It was originally sold in California, and stayed there until the guy I got it from bought it and registered it in Washington.


Hey Jeff,

Incredible thread!

If you don't mind me asking: what is your current expenditure at ?
I've always wondered whether it would be cheaper to fix a dinged Viper or buy an un-dinged one.

Since I don't have any car repair skills a project like yours is out of my league, but would still like to know whether it is economically feasible.


Thanks for following along. At this point I have around $24K in it. When I'm done, I'll probably be around $25K-$26K total investment. It'll never be perfect show car, but will be around $10K less than similar "driver" quality cars. I can keep the cost down because I'm doing all the work myself, and except for the driver's door, all the damage is cosmetic. The frame is straight, and the suspension, brakes, etc weren't damaged in the crash. Like Fatboy said, if you're going to pay someone to do the work, you're better off buying an undamaged car. Part of the reason the previous owner sold it was because he couldn't afford to get the car repainted. The paint and bodywork on this car, if done right by a good shop, could easily be over $8K, with labor being a very large portion of the cost(depending on availability, it would probably be cheaper for a shop to just replace the hood instead of fixing it too).

[ViperVass]

Thanks for the numbers Jeff. Seeing this B/W restored just gives me a warm feeling :)
When you do paintwork, is it possible to paint only the "effected areas" or does the whole body part need to be repainted? What about the laquer/clear-coat, how do you get that to be even afterwards, if only repainting a small area?

[Bugman Jeff]

I'm going to do my best to just spot paint it, I don't want to repaint the whole car if I don't have to(though I may end up doing it anyway). It'll come down to how well the color matches. Even with an exact color match, metallics and pearls can change color just depending on how they're sprayed. If it's sprayed to dry, the metallics can float on the paint, making it look lighter. If it's sprayed too wet, the metallics sink, making the color appear darker. Modern paints are much, much better about staying consistent than old paint was, but it can still happen. I'm going to try to spot in the base coat, covering the repair areas and blending them into the existing paint, then the entire panel will get cleared. If you didn't want to clear the entire panel, then you'd just blend it onto the existing paint out past the repair like you do the base coat. It's obvious that it's blended just after it's sprayed, but the transition should be seamless after it's sanded and buffed.

Also, as an aside, lacquer isn't used any more. Besides the high amount of VOCs it gives off as it dries, it's not as durable as modern paint. Nearly all base/clear paints now are urethane based, though many single stage paints are still enamel and hold up great too.

[WestminsterSlim]

Just spent the last couple hours going through this start to finish. It is just mind boggling to me how someone could treat this car no better than some treat their daily drivers. You really have done a great thing saving this car from an early grave. And as others have said, thank you for documenting the process so well. Even as someone that has been around cars my entire life, I have learned a ton. Really incredible work, can't wait to see the finished result. :dude3:

[1Willy1]

what a thread man, this is some amazing work

I work with fiberglass and bondo a lot myself, and your right, regular bondo once cured is like concrete, so make sure you at least trim it down with a knife before it sets , otherwise your spending all day on it.

[DJ's viper]

One of the best things of owning a viper is sharing the fun.

[jbrasco70]

Very detailed and informative ...GREAT JOB !

[Bugman Jeff]

Thanks guys, looking back it has come a long way so far. At the rate I'm posting, I'll have the car out again before I get done posting last fall's updates... :)

[Bugman Jeff]

I joked earlier about having the Viper out again before finishing last fall's updates. Turns out it wasn't that funny, because it's true(but it's still kind of funny). I bought a house in December and have been busy enough that I keep forgetting to post updates. In my last update I started bondoing the hood. It's time to finish it off. One of the most prominent features of the Gen II Viper is the hood scoop. The scoop is a plastic part, and after 15 years in the sun it's not the same shape it originally was. Additionally, the scoop on my car isn't from my car. I assume that the original was damaged in the crash so it was replaced. What all this adds up to is a scoop that doesn't fit like it did when it was new. The shape doesn't quite match the hood, and, since I re-fiberglassed almost the whole perimeter of the scoop hole, the gaps are all over the place. Since I have the bondo out already, now's the time to fix it. The easiest thing to do is to just bondo over the whole thing and sand it down. First I covered the scoop in blue painter's tape, then I bondoed over the whole area. The tape both keeps the bondo from sticking to the scoop, and provides some protection so it doesn't get too scratched up while sanding.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gquwjcN8Pqg/V0uk3M4BQdI/AAAAAAAABkI/0Uu-bE0R90Yf390hUEl6_s3ZA5aSNN4bACLcB/s1600/SAM_1825.JPG

The bondoed area is so big because it needs to blend smoothly into the rest of the hood. We don't want the scoop area to be a distinct high spot. You also have to make sure to allow enough room in the panel gap for primer and paint. If your gap is too small, the scoop won't fit once the primer and paint are applied. After blocking the area down, and some minor tweaking of the panel gap, the scoop fits good as new(actually, probably better than new).

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T1LWaCj9rHE/V0uk3gI1QkI/AAAAAAAABkM/EMaa13u0joAIacM-hlulf6LHySI9mxMkACLcB/s1600/SAM_1833.JPG

With all the bondo done on the hood, it's time for more Duratec. If you remember back when I first described Duratec, you'll know that it's very similar to fiberglass resin. It catalyzes differently than standard paints and primers. When you mix regular car paint or primer with catalyst, while the work time, or "pot life" is only an hour or so, it can still take a few days for a cup full of liquid to actually start to solidify. Duratec isn't like that. Much like fiberglass resin, once it starts to cure, it gels up quick, and the more catalyst you use, the faster it kicks off. If it does solidify in your paint gun, you go buy a new paint gun. Why am I mentioning this? Because when I Duratec'd the hood, I had a VERY close call. My gun started spraying like it was empty, but it wasn't. The Duratec started to gel up in the paint gun. It took a few minutes of frantic acetone scrubbing to get my gun clean before the stuff turned solid. At any rate, I did get my hood covered, and the hood is done until it's time for final primer and paint :)

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wUCtNTuZKF0/V0uk35LSg3I/AAAAAAAABkQ/KVldqasKlGIj8SGUkZCOW-SfDEpFRyEdACLcB/s1600/SAM_1835.JPG

[Fatboy 18]

Love this thread, Great work

[WestminsterSlim]

^^ What he said. Seriously awesome job

[Bugman Jeff]

With the hood done, there is only one part of major bodywork left on the Viper. When this car hit whatever it hit(probably a pole), it slid along the driver's door and into the quarter panel. The side sill had already been replaced when I got the car. The door was a total loss. Even a cheap bastard like me could see that it was more trouble that it was worth to try to fix. The quarter panel is another matter. It could be replaced, but the damage wasn't too bad and I'm me.

Let's have a look at the damage, shall we? You can see from the panel gap that the bottom of the quarter is shoved back almost 3/4".

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4hrmcH0xxFc/V0vGJLcNJMI/AAAAAAAABks/v16XrMeZfu0o2PO0gQ1KJV44kSN0z0hHgCLcB/s1600/SAM_1815.JPG

The quarter is shoved back to the point where the quarter is almost touching the sill. It's also got some cracking along the edges where it flexed too much, and you can see from here the split in the sill.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OgXTjHsPYrk/V0vGIUd4GvI/AAAAAAAABkk/T8oP7iEwXssrQ7KyYvhFr4zWDLgdrVJWwCLcB/s1600/SAM_1812.JPG

The inner sill is all cracked up too. None of the underlying metal is bent, but the fiberglass is cracked in several places. You can kind of see how the bottom of the sill is shoved back a bit too.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DRdtUq338mo/V0vGHw3atUI/AAAAAAAABkg/yk-9ho8LDV8TxCtrpKNEFkjz_k-uUmxkQCLcB/s1600/SAM_1810.JPG

Here's the main crack in the quarter panel. You can see that it's buckled a bit just below where it's riveted on. You can also see the spalling radiating out from around the visible crack indicating that the crack extends under the paint a ways.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-41RtuUorEt8/V0vGIqe52MI/AAAAAAAABko/if0KXKuf5NUaGTdKAL5AVOuC625DS_awQCLcB/s1600/SAM_1813.JPG

Fixing these areas will be just like all the other areas, with one minor addition. But we'll get to that next time :)

[Rudedawwg]

Read this thread from start to finish. You've put in quite an amount of work. Poor car, but glad to see its being looked after now.

[97gtscoupe]

wow i read this whole thing just now too lol. great work man! lots of dedication!

[Purple Haze]

Great thread!!! Jeff you have so much talent and I really respect someone who takes this much time and labor to make a great car great again! Well done!!! I wish I had your patience and knowledge!

[BrianACR]

Any updates on this project?? I'd like to see how far you've come since your last post :D

[Fatboy 18]

Any updates on this project?? I'd like to see how far you've come since your last post :D
Me too, epic thread, hoping to see more pictorial updates :)

[Boosted Motorsports]

I agree! This was definitely a cool thread.

[Firewater]

Bumping this epic thread hoping for some more updates :dude3:

[98intrigue]

Bumping this epic thread hoping for some more updates :dude3:

His last activity on the forum was nearly 2 years ago, so I doubt it :(

[WickedSpeed]

Bumping this up in the hopes of an update of sorts.

Wicked